There Is a Light That Never Goes Out
by NoRoleModelz
Summary: Yukari Takeba has joined the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad in an attempt to discover the truth behind her father's death. However, when a young man with a mop of blue hair and a reputation for having run-ins with the law suddenly joins the team shortly after her, she comes to realize that perhaps her journey won't be as straightforward as she'd hoped. [P3 novel, YPOV]
1. Grey

It's still hard for her, even up till now.

The sky's orange and purple, and even though the sun's shining through the windows, the room feels darker and colder than it's ever been. The noise of the outside barely registers; cars honking their horns, people clamoring in the streets, they don't mean a thing. The running water from the open faucet in her bedroom blocks out the rest of the world and lets the gravity of what she's doing hang in the room.

She's dishevelled. Her cardigan's open, she's barefoot, and her ribbon's undone. Her breathing's heavy, and her eyes are wide; she doesn't think she's blinked in hours. It's not a real gun, and she knows it. But when she presses the faux-gun to her head, when her finger's on the trigger, when the blood won't stop pulsing and her hands won't stop shaking, she feels something in her chest being wrenched from the inside-out.

The feeling's so hollow, she can't describe it. Like the strain comes from the gun alone. Something about the barrel touching her forehead teases out all the worst things she could have ever felt about herself, and she doesn't know what it is.

But she has to do it. She's already come this far.

She puts the gun down next to her and keeps breathing like each breath'll be her last. She's sat herself down on the floor, her back against the wall. Does she even remember why she came here, to this dorm in the middle of the city. Does she know what she's doing.

Her father would be horrified, wouldn't he?

Of course he would. If he's out there, watching over her right now, he'd want her to back away from all of this and never come back. She's absolutely certain of that. So why isn't she letting go of the gun?

It's light in her hands. It's silver, and the acronym S.E.E.S. is molded on the side of the barrel. The frame is black. It's not even a real gun. No bullets, no chamber, it's all fake. It's just meant to evoke feelings of stress, anxiety, mental taxation. She's got enough of that in stock; all she needs to do is...

She pulls up the gun from the floorboards again, for what must be the thousandth time today, and presses it to her forehead. She can't stop breathing like there's nails in her lungs, and she can't stop that wrenching feeling from tearing apart what little strength she's got left.

She's so very close to figuring out the truth. So she can do it. She will do it. She has to.

The water from the faucet continues swirling down into the drain, but the noise of the outside comes alive again, practically screaming at her—something in Yukari snaps then, and a part of her considers just pulling the trigger completely out of spite. But her hands won't stop shaking, why won't they stop shaking for one second, all she needs is a second to let everything go.

But of course, she can't.

So when the gun clatters against the ground, Yukari holds herself close in her room. Yukari lets herself cry her eyes out, unable to think straight without the anxiety overwhelming her senses. She'll pick up the gun and she'll try again another day, but right now she just wants to fall into a bottomless pit, and keep falling forever and ever, until the end of time.

What a great start to the new school year.

* * *

Why does everything with her have to be a thing?

It's been so many years since she's decided to stop just shambling around in the dark and hoping for something to come. She's been able to stand on her own two feet for such a long time now, but when the time comes for her to show her chops, she can't pull herself together.

It's shameful, aggravating, disappointing, and absurd. But the gun put a strain on her nerves she had never felt before. Just the act of pressing it to her forehead filled her mind with thoughts that weren't hers.

She's loathe to admit it, but the more she screamed at herself to _Just Pull the Trigger_ , the more she just wanted to throw the gun down, run away, and never come back. But what kind of person would she be, if she could just point a gun to her own head and fire so easily...?

They call it an Evoker, but Yukari doesn't like to mince words. It's a gun, plain and simple. There may be no live ammo, but the effect is largely the same. It's a reminder of her own mortality, meant to drive her nerves up the wall and draw out something from within, something grand and monstrous and wonderful all at the same time. It's perfect, in that sense; considering the kind of path she's set for herself, she could die at any moment.

Some part of her doesn't believe that anything she's seen or done throughout the past few weeks were even real. It's all just one crazy dream.

In the dead of night, as she peers out her window from the dorm, she doesn't let the sight hit her.

The sky is green. An incomplete moon hangs in cloudy skies, glowing yellow. Red paints the world, and all the city lights have blinked out of existence. Large black coffins stand where people once were, like monoliths in the street.

She's gotten relatively used to the Dark Hour. Her vision still gets a little blurry every now and again, especially when stressed, but these days they're beginning to adapt. She's still quite sluggish in the morning, but she'll get used to it soon enough. The fear doesn't get to her nerves that much anymore, so she likes to think she's slowly getting over her anxiety from just everything.

She remembers the first night she was made aware of the Hour; she was just crying and holding herself in the middle of the street, and she didn't even know why. She couldn't control her body, couldn't control her nerves, and made her see things that no human would be able to handle even a few seconds of. It nearly cost her her life when a large amorphous shape leapt out of the dark and threatened to claw her eyes out.

Then she was saved by a tall woman with red hair. It's alright, she was told then, panic attacks and sensory overload is quite common for those who've only recently awakened to their potential.

She hates that feeling of helplessness, and she remembers hating herself for crumbling apart so easily then. But she's gotten over that, for the most part.

She stares into the gun, sees a distorted reflection of herself in the silver, and exhales with the knowledge that despite every step she's made up to this point, she hasn't moved anywhere at all.

She'll deal with it tomorrow. She still has time. This is just one more step. One day she'll get where she needs to be, and then she'll be able to live with herself.

Something's downstairs.

* * *

She heard a rustling noise coming from the lobby, she's sure of it.

She's wearing her cardigan again, if only to help her stay secure in herself, and she's kept the gun holstered to her thigh. Her heart's beginning to pound and her vision's beginning to blur. Black spots are appearing in every corner, and there's a low droning noise seeping its way into her ears.

The senpai said that stress during the Dark Hour inhibits your senses, wrecks your nerves. Makes you feel and see things you shouldn't. The Evoker's meant to release all that stress in a bang; Yukari's not ready for that just yet, but she knows that if a Shadow's made its way into the dorm, she can't just stand still with her head in the sand.

She's hyperventilating by the time she makes it to the bottom of the stairs.

"Who's there!?"

She didn't intend for her shout to have sounded so vicious, but she can't help it. She can't see. She's in too deep. Vision's blurry, dark spots all over. She sees a shape she can't quite make out; the light of the moon hits the window panes and casts crosses over the figure and onto the ground, but she still can't see whoever or whatever it is and she hates it, she hates it because she can't do anything again—

The shape isn't without design. It's as tall as her, and from the way it moves what looks like its arms, it's skinny. Its one eye is bright blue, they're looking at her and they're wide and they're afraid. She sees its form phase in and out of the dark, and it makes sounds that can't possibly be made by human vocal chords. It's taken aback, like it's surprised, and on instinct she grabs the gun at her thigh even though she knows she'll be torn to bits before she can even pull the trigger—

"Takeba, wait!"

She whirls around, she recognizes that voice, she didn't think she'd be so happy to hear that voice.

And then the lights flicker back on.

 _Burn my dread..._

She hears music, faintly. Outside, she can see the neighboring buildings with lights coming out their windows. The few people passing by the dorm along the sidewalk have turned back into actual people. The sky's not green, and the moon's not yellow.

And she's able to see again. Mitsuru Kirijo is standing at the bottom of the stairs, her arms folded. Yukari can't help but smile at her. She has her reservations about Kirijo, but having another member of the team with her is enough to calm her nerves.

It's at this point that she turns and sees just who came into the dorm.

It's not a freakish monster, having come to claim her life in the dead of night. It's a young man with blue hair, a duffel bag over his shoulders.

He's not tall, not short, not scared, not calm. He has an impassive look in his eyes, and his hands are in his pockets; his skin is pale, he's slouching like he's tired. From his segmented fingers, slender neck, and veiny wrists, she can tell he's bone thin. His mouth is a still line and his expression is practically unreadable. There're earphones hanging over his shoulders, and she can tell from the sounds blasting out of them that the volume's on MAX.

He's meek as he brings his mp3 player up to his face and lowers the volume.

She's wary of him, because of course she is.

Nothing to do with embarrassment at all.

She keeps her hands behind her back and does her best to keep her heart out of her throat, as Mitsuru Kirijo begins the conversation.

"I didn't think you'd arrive so late," she says, trying to be amicable, trying to compensate for Yukari's uneasiness. "My name is Mitsuru Kirijo. I'm one of the students who live in this dorm."

"...who's he?" Yukari asks Kirijo, facing the young man alongside her. She doesn't mean to sound so cautious, or impersonal, but she can't help it.

The reply comes immediately, "He's a transfer student. It was a last minute decision to assign him here. He'll eventually be moved to a room in the boys' dorm."

"...is it okay for him to be here?" she half-whispers, hoping the boy doesn't hear her (he does).

Kirijo turns to Yukari assuringly, says, "I guess we'll see," and gestures to her, facing the young man. "This is Yukari Takeba. She'll be a junior this spring, just like you."

"...hey." She really doesn't mean to sound so cold. She hopes he isn't offended, even though she's sure he is.

He squints at her, and she notices his eyes are on her thigh; the holster strapped to it, to be precise. _He'll ask about the gun_ , she silently groans, _this all got so out of hand..._

Instead, he rubs the back of his neck and yawns, his mouth wide-open and his eyes shut. Then, he speaks, "Nice to meet you."

He sounds like a man half-dead. Though she figures he would sound like that, considering that he's come a long way from home. But he knows he has questions, too many questions, and she's lucky he's too tired to ask them right now.

"Uh, y-yeah...nice to meet you too...," she nods vigorously, hoping it'll be enough.

He looks around the place, as if sizing it up. The lights, the carpet, the way everything's structured, he decides he likes it. But he doesn't think he'll stay here for very long. "Is this the girls' dorm...?"

Yukari replies, "No, it's not, but...umm, how should I explain it...?

"Unlike the other buildings, this one's co-ed. It's not your typical dorm, though. I'll explain it to you later when I get a chance," says Kirijo.

Golden question comes up sooner than Yukari hoped. He's looking at her thigh as she asks, "Why do you have a gun on you?"

Why can't she just bury herself in the floorboards and hide in them until she dies.

She tries to think of a good enough response, but all she comes up with is, "Well, it's sorta like a hobby...well, not a hobby, but..."

Kirijo's quick to reply in her place. "You know how it is these days. It's for self-defense. It's not a real gun, of course."

Both replies were flimsy, inadequate, and obviously made up on the fly. They know that he doesn't buy either of them in the least, but from the way he nods he's willing to entertain them for now. Which is enough, at the moment.

Mitsuru has to deflect. "It's getting late, so you should get some rest. Your room is on the second floor, at the end of the hallway. Your things should already be there."

She turns to Yukari, who fidgets but manages a smile. "Oh...I'll show you the way. Follow me."

The way he looks at her, she just knows they're not going to get along very well.

* * *

"This is it...pretty easy to remember, huh? Since it's right at the end of the hall."

The two minutes it took to get to the second floor of the dorm were some of the most excruciatingly awkward two minutes of Yukari's life. He didn't speak a word to her, not once, forcing her to make conversation the moment they get to his door, if only to make the silence less noisy.

"Oh yeah, make sure you don't lose your key, or you'll never hear the end of it...," she knows she's grasping at straws. He just nods along, however, so she thinks it might not be too bad if she just goes for it. "So, any questions?"

He's not even looking at her. He's looking at the hallway leading to the staircases. Eyeing them carefully, like he's expecting someone to come up after them. She's on the verge of calling him out for being impolite, because she's tired and nervous and doesn't like being ignored. But then he speaks.

"Do elementary students take up residence here, too?" he asks, his voice strained.

A strange question, one that Yukari didn't expect. "Uh...no?"

He turns to her and blinks, then faces the staircase again, and then turns back to her, "Because there was this kid who handed me a contract, at the counter in the lobby..."

She furrows her brows, "What are you talking about?"

He's lost her already. He scratches his head, "Never mind."

She decides to be more direct. Always take the hit, her dad once told her. "Um...can I ask you something? On your way here from the station, was everything okay?"

He raises his brow, lowers his head and looks at her, Really? and then says plainly, "Yeah."

Yukari purses her lips, and nods back. "I see...never mind, then. It seems like you're alright." Then she steps away from his door, "Well, I better get going..."

She walks down the hall, but stops halfway through. She spots him glaring at the number of his door, like it'd personally wronged him somehow.

"Um...," she mutters, and he turns back to face her. "I'm sure you still have other questions, but let's save them for later, okay?"

For a moment, he deliberates on an answer, but he figures he's okay with what he has right now. "Yeah."

She's somber as she tells him, "Good night," and heads back down the stairs.

He goes to his room and flops down on the bed the minute he sees it, not even caring that the duffel bag is crushing his spine.

* * *

Once Yukari treads back down to the lobby, she's met with a question.

"What happened?" Kirijo isn't upset, just genuinely curious. Her arms are still folded.

Yukari sighs as she puts a hand to her forehead, pulls her fringe back in exhaustion, and lets go. "Dark Hour messed with my head. Saw spots in my eyes again, and in the haze of it all, I thought he was a Shadow."

"You heard him from your room?"

"I heard something down here, and I feared the worst," she admitted. "Thought too much about it, then...I sorta ran on autopilot by the time I got to the bottom of the steps."

Kirijo tells her calmly, "It's fine. You've only recently awakened to your potential. I estimate you'll be fully acclimated to the Hour by next week." Then she lets a pause enter her speech, before coming out with, "I should've informed you on him sooner. I'll hand you his papers later in the week."

"He has a Persona, is what you're saying," Yukari asks, but it sounds like a declaration.

"Perhaps," is Kirijo's response. "He shows signs of it. But we ought to be careful."

Yukari raises her brow, "Why?"

"He's got quite a history with the law," Kirijo half-smirks, as she heads up the stairs. "You'll know once I hand you his files."

"You think he'll join us?" Yukari asks, Kirijo passing her on the flight.

"I hope so; the more, the merrier. Can you take him to Gekkoukan later, at seven?"

"M-me?"

"You're in the same class. It'd be more convenient for him."

Yukari isn't opposed to the idea. But she would've preferred to have had more of a warning. "Alright..."

"Thank you. I'm sorry. I know it's very sudden, but—"

"It's fine," grunts Yukari. "I'll do it. Don't worry."

It's obvious to anybody with eyes. Yukari knows her attempts at hiding it are getting more and more transparent by the day. But it's too early in the morning for this.

Kirijo then heads back up to the third floor, leaving Yukari in the lobby. The lights are on, and the grandfather clock next to the counter has its hands on 12:05 AM.

Yukari doesn't know why she wanders over to the counter, nor does she know why she opens the signature book. Maybe she just wants to see if he wrote down his name. Soon enough, she finds it at the very top of the sheet:

 _Arisato Minato_

* * *

She's at his room again. She's tired, but she'll probably have to get used to only five to six hours of sleep from this point on.

Knock, knock.

"It's Yukari. Are you awake?"

Suddenly she hears footsteps shuffling around on the other side. But the door doesn't open, nor does she get a response. When ten seconds pass and she still gets nothing, she loses her patience.

"Helloooo, please answer the door, or I'll get in trouble," she says then, in a mock sing-song voice.

Footsteps head towards the door. Door opens.

He's at least got his uniform on, and she can see that his bag's lying over his bed. She sees his grey eye, the one not swept under a blue fringe, I thought his eyes were blue? She decides not to dwell. "Good morning. Did you sleep okay?"

He yawns, "Sorry for not responding. Had a bad back since I woke up."

Not very much of a morning person, is he. "Mitsuru-senpai asked me to take you to school. It's getting late, so...are you ready to go?"

He sounds like he wanted the conversation to end the moment he was pressed to talk. "I can find it myself."

She hopes he's not being deliberately brusque with her. "You don't wanna risk being late the first day, do you?"

Yukari doesn't like rushing him, but she's not much of a morning person, either. After a brief moment of deliberation, he just grunts, and gently closes the door.

Yukari knows she shouldn't be surprised that the guy she nearly pulled a gun on, wouldn't exactly be keen on talking to her. She's never good when it comes to awkward situations like these, and shudders at the idea of having to rely on him in Tartarus. She knows it's partly her fault, though; she doesn't try as hard as she should.

After a few more seconds of him making ruffling noises in his room, he opens the door again. His bag is in his hand, and he adjusts the little ribbon around his collar before fitting the mp3 player round his neck, and draping the earphones over his shoulders. He says then, a little earnestly, "Alright. Let's go."

Yukari smiles. "We'll have to take the monorail to get there."

He squints, "Monorail?"

"Yup. Our stop is Port Island Station. From there, we walk. You ever heard of Tatsumi Port Island?"

He's not used to people talking to him this much. "Heard they built Gekkoukan right in the middle."

"You'll be able to see it from the window of the train," she responds.

He nods, "How long does the trip normally take...?"

"Thirty minutes, give or take. On bad days, maybe an hour. Which is why we're leaving early," she says.

"Makes sense," he says.

"Shall we go?"

And as she heads down the hall, she hears him call her, "Hey."

He's brusque, sure. But he doesn't sound angry. So she turns. "Yes?"

He's got a firm look in his eyes. "I'm not...," and then he pauses, his words hanging in the air. He decides against whatever he was supposed to say. "Never mind."

Yukari knows exactly what he wants to ask her about. "About last night...," he lifts his head and faces her. "Don't tell anyone what you saw."

He knots his eyes, and faces her directly, removing his hands from his pockets. They're shaking.

"So you know about it, too."

She continues, "Only the people in our dorm know about the Dark Hour."

He immediately faces her, raising his brow. "That what you call it?"

She nods, "Yeah. No one else knows about it, other than us."

"What, are you all part of some club?" he grunts.

"Something like that," she says, a little pensive. "We'll answer all of your questions by the end of the day."

"I've been with it for ten years," he says, wide-eyed and teeth gritted. She nearly shrinks away from him. "Has it been going that long for everybody else, or is it just me?"

She grips the handle of her bag. Ten years? She can't even imagine. "I can't say the same thing for others. I only awakened to it recently."

"You'll tell me everything?" he asks.

I literally just said— "We will." She stands firm. "I promise you. We will."

He raises his brow, and slings his bag over his shoulder, "Fine."

She wonders why he has to keep his other eye underneath such an unwieldy blue fringe. She didn't think she was that behind on the trends...

* * *

The trip to Gekkoukan isn't particularly long. Thirty minutes, over the monorail.

Luckily, they both manage to find themselves some seats before the train got overwhelmed by passengers. Yukari's grateful for that, but is aware that she's now in the awkward position of having to sit next to the guy, and find something to talk about on the way there. Lest things remain uncomfortably awkward between them both. Though, should she be surprised that the guy she nearly pulled a gun on, wouldn't exactly be keen on talking to her?

Way to make a good first impression...

They remain silent all the way to the school grounds. Though that's largely because he slept the whole way on the train, and awoke just as the monorail stopped at the station. People greet her the whole way through to Gekkoukan, and she greets them back in kind. She's able to smile, she's able to socialize. She's able to pretend that life's still normal.

Even when they reach the school gates, they continue remaining silent in themselves.

The building's pristine. The window panes are large enough to be buildings themselves. Trees line the sides of tiled road on the way to the entrance doors. There're people passing them by, completely normal and nice people who know nothing of what happens at midnight. They're even staring at them, at her, at him, and they don't even know what they're talking about. The sakura petals are flowing from the trees, and it's all so perfect you might as well take a picture and call it The Joys of Spring. It's all a mask, Yukari knows. But it's a pretty mask.

Yukari thinks to introduce him to the school, say something like Welcome to Gekkoukan High School. Hope you like it.

But he's still listening to music from his earphones. He's still looking bored, like not a thing in the world matters to him at all. So she decides against pleasantries. She doesn't know a thing about him, and he doesn't know a thing about her.

It's at this point that she realizes she's walked about five feet ahead of him. He's slouched, staring at his feet. She sees his knees, they're trembling. He's pursed his lips. She can tell he's trying with everything he's got.

She walks over to him. "Are you okay?"

There's not a word she can think of that can properly describe his expression. He whispers something.

"S-sorry?" she asks him.

"I feel something," he grunts, practically glaring at the school. "What is this place?"

She turns to the building. He can feel it, even during the day?

"You didn't see the tower on the way to the dorm, did you?" she asks him, under her breath.

He knots his eyes, "What tower?"

So he hasn't even seen Tartarus yet... "Don't worry. They don't know what's wrong with the school, either. Only we do."

"How long have things been like this...?" he mutters, actually sounding a little terrified—

"I don't know. That's why the club was formed, to find out," she says. "At night, this place turns into something terrible. But right now, it's exactly what it looks like. It's a school. Nothing more, nothing less." She faces him directly now, "We'll meet after classes. Head home together. I'll answer every single question you have to the best of my ability. If I don't know the answer, you'll just have to ask the senpai or the chairman. They know way more about all this than I do."

He doesn't respond with anything else for a time, then he gives another nod. He then lowers his shoulders, exhaling and vigorously scratching his head. "Fine. Okay."

She manages to catch a peek of his other eye, under the fringe, as he shuffles past her on her way into the school. Why is it closed?

And she realizes he doesn't even know where the faculty office is supposed to be. But he's rushing in anyway: "H-hey, wait...!"

* * *

When Yukari's brought to the chairman's office by lunchtime, she doesn't really know what to expect.

It's a luxurious workspace, she admits. Shelves full of books and awards along the sides. Two couches in the middle of the room, facing each other; a coffee table between them both. The chairman's desk is at the very end of the room, positioned right in front of window panes too large for their own good.

Mitsuru Kirijo's sitting (again, why does she always keep her arms folded) in the couch to Yukari's left, staring impassively at the coffee table across from her. Ikutsuki, with his long hair and khaki overcoat, is quick to greet Yukari when she arrives. Though he remains seated as he does, and keeps his hands tented like he's Gendo Ikari or something.

"Good to have you with us," Ikutsuki says, with a glint in his glasses and a smile. "How's your first day of classes been, Yukari?"

Yukari always thought his face was a bit punchable, but it's more an afterthought than anything out of malice. "It's alright so far. But it's not my day you're really asking about, is it?"

"To the point, aren't you?" Ikutsuki chuckles. "Still. You're right. Sorry for not informing you about your new teammate sooner, we've just been very busy with the new school year, and all."

"It's fine," she responds, seating herself down on the couch across from Kirijo. "He knows about the Dark Hour."

Mitsuru's eyes light up. "He told you?"

"He wanted to talk to me about it earlier, this morning. I told him to hold off on it, and he seemed okay with that," Yukari shrugs. "But yeah, he knows. And according to him, he's known for ten whole years, now."

Mitsuru's eyes widen as she turns to the chairman, who clasps his hands even tighter together. He nods to her, at which point Mitsuru places a folder down upon the coffee table. It's packed to the brim with papers. "I suggest you read it. All of it."

Yukari's never been good with documents. Very formal, very impersonal. But she grabs the folder, and prepares to open it.

"December 1, 1999," Ikutsuki says suddenly. "It's a date of importance for you, yes?"

Yukari feels something cold, rising up from the nothingness in her chest. "Yes," she says firmly.

"Then you both have something in common," he nods somberly.

And so she opens the folder, and reads, and a million things begin making sense.

* * *

 _The first thing he sees is fire._

 _His heart isn't racing. It's difficult to move. He shouldn't be so calm. Something in his right leg is busted just enough, and in the back of his mind he's worried he won't ever be able to walk properly again. His vision's mostly blurry. He can't hear anything besides a high-pitched whine, and he's lost all feeling in his left shoulder. The fires rage, practically dancing right in front of him. When he looks up, he sees a swathe of black looming over him. The light from outside hits the shape in an almost painterly way, and so when he's able to see, he's able to make out the contortions and the broken angles of the car practically sheltering him._

 _The seats are punctured and torn. There's something heavy pressing down over his body. He doesn't know if he's scared or still in shock. He knows he doesn't want this. He knows he needs to get out of here. He and Mom and Dad. A long dinner, his parents were meeting up with old friends and he was brought along. He's trapped under the mangled corpse of the family car and he's trying to make some sense of this. At least before he dies, before the car blows up like in the movies and he's just paint all over the road._

 _His parents are dead. He knows they've got to be. They'd be calling out for him. They'd be calling for help from outside the car. They wouldn't abandon him. But maybe they're still alive. Maybe they're not dead, and he's just overthinking things; they're probably unconscious. They've got to be. They wouldn't just leave him here to die alone—what's pressing down on him?_

 _He turns to the darkness, and once his vision clears, the darkness stares back._

 _His father's remaining eye is dull and dead and coated in blood. His mouth has lulled open, his tongue sticking out and dripping red. His nose is gone, as well as a fourth of his face and skull. The head's been cut off below the neck, and from the frays of skin sticking out from the stump, it wasn't necessarily a clean cut. A headless body is trapping him from the waist down, and he's not sure if he has the strength nor the stomach to lift it off of him._

 _He's shaking, now. He feels the whole world crumple in on itself, his body turning to paper and begging to lie down and die. Where's his mother? Where's Mom? From behind his father's corpse, he sees the outline of what looks like a body. Broken and bent, Mom? He's not even sure what it is. Still too dark to see, from where he is now. He feels his cheeks going numb. He feels his lower half fall asleep. He's getting colder, and colder. Something's being carved out of him, and he's too young to even comprehend what exactly it is._

 _He doesn't remember his name, if he even has one. He doesn't even know if he's still alive. For a time, he's content to just lay there in the ground, trapped under a body. Crushing him under its weight, if the car doesn't blow up first._

 _First, he hears a roar. It sounds like a thunderstorm, like something too large for the likes of the world. The stone beneath his body rumbles and pebbles start moving along the ground. The steel of the car makes a horrible wrenching noise as he hears the metal bend. It spirals above him as the steel and the gasoline wash his body and his father's, and whatever's left of his mother is taken up along with the wreck as the mangled car is tossed over to the side._

* * *

 **A/N: Thesis killing me. But had this on the backburner in AO3 and I thought why not upload it here? Gonna upload the first four chapters steadily over the course of the week.**

 **I know P3 novelizations aren't exactly *in* now; P3's pretty much a dead game at this point, barely anybody writes stories or novelizations for it these days. So when I thought of writing one for myself (again), I wondered just how I could make it unique in comparison to all the others. The idea struck me then, "What if it's mostly from Yukari's POV?"**

 **Which would be a challenge. Because Yukari's not exactly the most beloved choice of pairing for the MC, nor is she the most beloved character from the game. But hey, I really liked her character. So we'll see where things go from here.**

 **Please note that some of my descriptions'll be a little graphic. I have a tendency to write detailed descriptions of violence, and tend to dwell on particularly dark themes like drug use, or delinquency, and the like. So if that's not your speed, feel free to read something else.**

 **Also, I quite enjoy writing stories involving characters with *terrible* romantic lives, and considering what I'm about to write out for Minato's character, it might be best to warn those sensitive to the topic that I'm going to delve in the idea of how a toxic relationship can destroy an emotionally-fragile person, and affect his ability to form relationships as he grows older.**

 **Also, Alternity Paradox and LPP3FES are still gonna be worked on. Consider this a...side project.**


	2. Abyss

She remembers her childhood all too well.

Yukari had gotten used to her father being out for days at a time, so the last night they saw him, they just watched him leave without much of a goodbye. The news hit her family almost the first thing, next morning. Her mother was panicking over the phone, trying to contain herself and crumbling apart by the second as the call continued on. Yukari was a child then, she didn't understand what was happening, but she knew that something was wrong, that something happened to Dad, that nothing would ever really be the same again. And they really never were.

It didn't rain, the day of her father's funeral. Only she and her mother attended. And after getting home, they were met with calls. With her father dead, the events of December 1 couldn't be blamed on anybody but his next of kin. Yukari remembers being nine years old, having to arrange her things in a brown suitcase and move with her mother to some faraway place, for what must've been the fifth time in a year.

Yukari would fend for herself, a lot of the time. Her mother would be out working throughout most of the day, meaning Yukari had to learn a great many things on her own (she thanks God every day for the internet). Cooking, cleaning, groceries, the laundry; Yukari would often set the dinner table for herself and her mother and patiently wait for hours, staring at the clock in her living room in anticipation—only to end up eating alone, and having too many leftovers.

She's not spoken to her mother in years, not properly anyway, but she doesn't need to. Not anytime soon. If there's one really positive aspect of her childhood, Yukari would have to say it's the self-reliance she gained over that time. For a time, she felt that all she did was survive through each day, but now she looks back on those days with satisfaction—to at least some degree. A lot of it was grit and endurance, and while moments of peace and brevity were few and far between, the fact that she's come as far as she has is something she can take pride in.

She can socialize; she's reasonably popular among the student body in Gekkoukan (although, taking into account how guys tend to act around her, she'd say she's a little too popular). She's got a fine circle of friends, both in and out of the Archery club; even though she knows she won't have too much time hanging out with them this year (what with the Dark Hour and all), she's sure they're all still gonna be pretty close. She's also taken up some basic self-defense training, so if any guy tries anything funny on her, she can at least fight back and show him where he can stuff it.

For some reason, her friends even often come to her for advice; they know she's been through rough times (though Yukari doesn't really like dwelling upon them in public), and in her experience they see someone reliable. Yukari does her best and she says what's on her mind, and they're grateful. She talks about herself when pressed, but not about too much. The most her closest friends know about her family is the aforementioned Dead Dad bit. They'd never know what went on behind closed doors, between her and her mother, and Yukari wouldn't have had it any other way. Even these days she doesn't let up on it; if someone were to try and tease more out of her, she'd shut them down, make her boundaries clear, and not care if she'd drive them away.

All in all, Yukari wouldn't say she's lived an easy life, but she likes to think she's managed herself well enough. A normal life is out of her reach, as she is now; but she can make do with what she's got, as she always has.

Yet after reading his file, she doesn't quite know what to think.

Yukari Takeba knows what it's like to lose a parent, but she can't even comprehend what it must've felt like for him to've lost both at the same time. What he must have seen and heard. The timeline fits, if she's going to go by what he's said to her, and what she knows from his papers; they lost all sense of normalcy on the same night, but he had to endure the Hour so soon.

He was only seven.

Worse, it was on the Bridge.

The Moonlight Bridge. One of Iwatodai's biggest attractions. Which means he lived here. He was born here, in the city. Why would he come back?

She can't even imagine herself in his shoes; it was hard enough living with her mom, but the idea of her gone, along with dad, with only the green and the coffins to look after her from then on…

Apparently, he was taken in by family friends, the day he lost everything; a woman named Sakura Shiomi was his guardian after his parents' death, and he lived with her and her daughter from then until now.

The rest of the files go into detail about his younger years, and Yukari can't help but drift over to a set of papers at the very end, detailing various...delinquencies. She skims through, because she doesn't quite like reading about things like this for very long, but she manages to get enough info out.

He's got a history of violent behavior on school grounds; twice in elementary school did he injure multiple people, several grades above his. Spotty attendance all throughout middle school. Withdrawn behavior, would often be seen hanging around people noted to be delinquents or problem children.

Luckily, he seemed to knock it off by the time he reached the ninth grade. Perfect attendance, perfect behavior. Still a little abrasive to teachers and students, but he'd at least stay out of trouble. She doesn't want to read his medical files, because it's way too early in the day for that.

Yukari knows she can be judgmental. She's accepted that part of herself, and doesn't think she wants it to budge. So of course she's wondering:

"You think he'll...be a good asset to the team?"

In the chairman's office, she stares at both Ikutsuki and Kirijo, seeking answers. Kirijo opts to stare at her knees for a moment while Ikutsuki merely watches the situation unfold, half-smiling. There's an awkwardness in the room, one that Yukari's well aware of and trying to rectify, yet only exacerbates.

The senpai speaks up, "We are well aware of the kind of life he'd led before. Though he's corrected his behavior, we can't be sure to what extent. That being said, he's outright confirmed he's aware of the Dark Hour. I'm willing to take him in as a member of the team, so long as his past stays in the past."

"Are you sure?" Yukari asks.

Mitsuru squints, "Absolutely. If he proves too much to handle, he'll be off the team and I'll have him moved to a different dorm. I'll even advocate for his suspension or expulsion, if it comes to it. But if he's willing to work with us and follow orders, I see no reason to exclude him from the team."

Yukari knots her eyes.

Is she too wary of the guy? From the short time she's spent with him, she's found him horribly unapproachable. Blunt, brusque, with a hollow look in his eye. Slouched over, looking at everything like they're fragile porcelain; a drawl in his voice, monotonous and uncaring, like absolutely nothing in the world matters at all. She doesn't like talking to people like him, but then again, judging by his files, he seems to have changed for the better from what he used to be.

She can't comprehend the kind of life he must've led, nor the kind of trauma he must have felt all those years ago. Earlier in the day, she and he had to attend this entrance ceremony, and she nearly fell asleep at the principal's first few words at the podium (I'd like each of you to remember the proverb, "If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing well...").

But she kept her eye on the mop of blue hair from time to time, saw the listless look in his eye, saw him half-asleep in his own chair, saw him hunched over as he practically trudged out the door in the line heading back to the classrooms. She remembers wanting to reach out to him, then. She remembers deciding against it, that they're not close enough for that sort of thing yet. Was she wrong to think that?

A part of her thinks, with all this new information, that she wasn't. And isn't.

"From your interactions with him," says the senpai suddenly, "how would you describe him?"

Yukari furrows her brows. This all feels incredibly skeevy. "He's...yeah, he's withdrawn. He's a little rough around the edges. But I wouldn't say he's out to start trouble. At least, from what I've seen of him...," she frowns in discomfort.

Mitsuru sees it in her eyes, "We're not intending on forcing him to join. If he decides to refuse us, nothing will be held against him."

"Background checks are only natural when it comes to recruiting possible new members, Yukari," says the chairman matter-of-factly. "I thought that was clear enough when we recruited you."

Yukari knows that, she knows all about that. In fact, she was told plainly, the day she became a member, that the Kirijo Group had been keeping tabs on her for a time before her formal enlistment into the team.

But something about all this feels...too easy. Reading about his files, his records, his parents; it's like she's crossed a line. It's been difficult for her to talk about Dad to literally anybody else around her, but she just got hit with this the minute she'd walked into the room.

And she's got nobody to blame but herself, because she's the one who opened the folder in the first place.

Though she'd been advised to read everything by Kirijo, right? And besides, she's supposed to do this. She's a member of the team now, it's part of her duty to make judgment calls on who's signing on to help the fight.

She's got nothing and everything to regret, essentially.

"So have you told him about us? About S.E.E.S.?" asks Kirijo.

Yukari responds, "He knows we're all one big club, meant to solve what's going on with the Dark Hour and all. But he doesn't know about Tartarus, and I don't know yet if he's aware of the Shadows."

Kirijo nods. "He wants to know everything, doesn't he...?"

Yukari's firm. "Yes."

"Then we'll tell him, the moment we return to the dorm," Kirijo gets up from her seat. "You'll accompany him on the way home."

"Me again?" Yukari's not even trying to hide her annoyance now. "Shouldn't you come with? Or at the very least, Akihiko-senpai? School year's just begun, not like you're drowning in work—"

"In fact, she is," Ikutsuki saw the agitation brewing in Mitsuru's eyes, and cut in before she could let loose. "The Kirijo Group's already having her attend meetings to discuss her future dealings with the company, once she graduates. Akihiko, on the other hand, is busy with the boxing club today."

"I've got archery," mutters Yukari.

But Kirijo says curtly, "Coach Yamada's out sick today. For now, archery club's off the table."

Yukari finds nothing to say to that, and just turns her eyes groundward. Trying not to show how foolish she feels for letting everything out so hastily.

The damage has been done, however. "I'll meet you and Arisato come 8:00 PM," Kirijo says in a mild huff as she gets up off the seat and heads to the door. "The chairman will be joining us as well. Best to get this over with."

She leaves before Yukari can get her piece in.

Ikutsuki raises his brow at her, looking half-amused. "I don't understand why you can't get along with her."

The girl stares at the file on the table, angry for no good reason whatsoever. She sees the clock on the wall, sees it's almost the start of second period, and gets off her own seat.

Ikutsuki just sighs, swivels in his chair, and looks out the window panes to the rest of the school grounds, the sun casting a white light over the lens of his glasses.

* * *

Of course she and he are in the same class.

She remembers seeing him, up there on the podium in their classroom earlier in the day. He introduced himself to the whole room right up front, still slouched of course. She couldn't help but notice his handwriting was simple but refined, and that for his name he used the kanji 港, for harbor. She remembers his dull, impassive eyes; practically boring through and into everyone in the room. She heard people snickering behind her, chuckling at his hair and how out-of-style it is.

He said his name in something of a drawl, but he spoke clearly and loudly, almost like he'd wanted to get it over with. Out of all the people in the room, Yukari remembers that she herself was the only person his eyes didn't pass over. Not even as he then took his seat behind her and began dozing off, mere minutes later.

She remembers him looking kind of...peaceful with his face in his arms.

When Yukari discovered the Dark Hour, discovered what kind of power she'd held in herself, she honestly believed she was going somewhere. Like she's found something to do beyond shamble and hope, and want to know the truth but be resigned to ignorance.

It's still a struggle for her, she knows. The fear and the anxiety do get to her from time to time, especially during the Dark Hour; some part of her thinks that the multitude of emotions swarming in her head is just the stuff she wouldn't let herself feel all this time coming to the forefront of her mind.

And she makes her way back to the classroom, trying to figure out just what she could possibly say to him now that she knows just everything, she sees him in his chair.

Whereas everyone else is standing or talking to one another or forming little circles of friends, he's just sleeping in his chair. In the middle of the room.

Sometimes she wishes she could be that carefree.

Then someone comes up to him. She recognizes that someone from the odd gait he has, to the mild goatee painting his chin, to the wideness of his eyes, to the baseball cap on his head. And immediately she's deflated, because even from the shogi screen, she can hear him.

"S'up, dude? How's it goin'?"

Junpei's merry voice is enough to stir the mop of blue hair from his slumber, and Minato Arisato raises his head to face him, still maintaining that impassive look in his eye.

Junpei Iori's someone she has mixed opinions of. She finds his eagerness to just latch on to people intimidating when it's not annoying, but at the same time just a little endearing. He's loud and obnoxious, but he's forthright when he wants to be. He's a perv, and she's seen him ogling a few girls at practice, but she knows he wouldn't lay his hands on any of them without their consent.

Call it Stockholm syndrome, but she's been with the guy for three years, and she supposes if you were stuck with anything for that amount of time, you'd become at least a little bit attached (if not used) to them.

Yukari decides to just let this situation play out. Because the idea of someone like Junpei trying to befriend someone like Arisato is too good for her to not see unfold.

Arisato responds exactly as expected: a blunt, plain, abrasive "What do you want?"

Yukari almost steps in then and there, but Junpei takes this good-naturedly. She envies his perseverance, "Oh, come on. Let me introduce myself, at least. I'm Junpei Iori. Nice to meet ya. I transferred here when I was in eighth grade. I know how tough it is bein' the new kid...so I wanted to say, Hey. See what a nice guy I am?"

Minato just stares at the guy, looks down at his feet and passes his eye over him. Junpei stares back at him, looking a little awkward as he does so.

Yukari decides she needs to step in before it's too late, and approaches them both.

Junpei reacts, again, as expected. "Hey, it's Yuka-tan! Didn't think we'd be in the same class again."

"At it again, huh?" she replies, half-amused and half-annoyed. "I swear, you'll talk to anyone if they'll listen. Did you ever think you might be bothering someone?"

Junpei often likes to exaggerate things when he's got hurt feelings, but there's something genuine in his voice as he asks, "What? But I was just bein' friendly."

Yukari shrugs, "If you say so," before turning to Arisato. Cold. Distant. Emotionless. She feels like freezing up the moment her eyes meet his. But she manages out, "Anyway, looks like we're in the same homeroom..."

Arisato notices her discomfort, but shrugs and remains closed-off. "Yeah. I know."

"Funny, huh?" Stupid, awkward, Yukari you can't come up with a good quip to save your life—

Suddenly, Junpei cuts in, "You guys forgetting I'm in this class, too?"

And then for seemingly no reason whatsoever, he grins. Before Yukari can properly comprehend something bad's coming up, Junpei's already brought his arms over both their shoulders. In a fraction of a second, Yukari and Arisato are practically side-by-side.

"By the way," Junpei continues on, Yukari knowing what kind of smirk he's got on, "heard you two came to school together this morning."

Yukari bristles, her face a little red; she doesn't mean to flail about as much as she does when she pushes Junpei away. "Wh-what are you talking about!? We live in the same dorm. There's nothing going on, okay?"

Junpei's still got his other arm round Arisato, and the both of them look at her knowing she's not helping her case. Especially with how she continues going on about it.

"Why are people even talking about it!?" she exclaims. "Now you have me worried..."

Arisato, slowly and gently, gets Junpei's arm off his shoulder. Then, he yawns, rubbing at the eye uncovered by his fringe. Yukari sees a bit of the other eye, still closed since this morning.

She moves closer to him, half-whispering, "Hey...you okay?"

Junpei's watching this unfold, and she's sure he's gonna spread 'round even more rumors than what've already been spread. But she doesn't care. If only to make sure.

Arisato stares at her through that single eye of his. "I'm fine."

"We'll tell you everything you need to know, tonight," she says, but then sighs. "We can stop by someplace along the way, though. Senpai won't be back 'til evening."

"I'd prefer we head back immediately," he replies. "You'll just fill me in on what you know, then, till they get back?"

She clears her throat and exhales, "Yeah."

There's something of a tense silence.

"You're reeeeally not helping yourself by being all buddy-buddy with him on the first day, y'know," laughs Junpei.

Immediately she stops smiling. "W-wait a minute! Don't get the wrong idea! Listen! I just met him yesterday, and there's absolutely nothing between us! You better not start any rumors!"

"Ah, who cares?" Junpei shrugs. "No one takes rumors seriously, anyway. You're so paranoid." Before Yukari can interject further, Junpei throws his arm over Arisato's shoulder again. "But, hey! It's your first day here, and people are already talkin' about you! Believe it or not," he points his thumb at Yukari, "she's actually pretty popular. You da man!"

"I'm standing right here, you know," she exclaims.

At which point Arisato, again, gently lifts Junpei's arm off of him.

But Junpei just laughs, "This is gonna be a fun year..." as Yukari and Arisato stare at each other, nonplussed. "I can feel it!"

* * *

Of course, the trip back home is just as lifeless as the trip to school was. Neither she nor he find it in themselves to speak or interact beyond getting themselves back to the dorm. Yukari tries to make light of the situation, think about how perhaps their ability to remain silent in the other's presence is a sign of some unspoken comfort. She knows she's deflecting and distracting herself. He's doing the same, maintaining a bored look in his eye with his ears plugged the whole way home.

That song again, _Burn my dread..._ , has Yukari heard it before?

He hasn't tried to start up conversation himself. She shouldn't complain; in his shoes, she might've been the same. Even nowadays, she finds herself more than a little antsy whenever people bring up the annoying nonsense their parents do. It's petty, she knows, but it's difficult to listen to someone talk about how aggravating their parents are with curfews and allowances and such, when she doesn't even have that luxury herself.

She dwells upon this for a time, unable to determine what he must be thinking behind those stony eyes of his; when they return to the dorm, she's surprised when he's the one who holds the door open for her.

She didn't even see him brush past her. "Th-thanks."

He just nods.

Does he always have to be so robotic?

Stop. You know what he's been through. She moves into the lobby, "When the senpai come back, we'll head up to the fourth floor."

He just grunts.

She throws her bag down on the couch in the living room before scribbling out her name on the sign-in sheet. Arisato follows behind her, gently placing his bag on the small chair next to the couch, signing in his name directly after hers.

As she treads up the stairs, planning to sleep the rest of the day 'til the senpai arrive, she's stopped by an offer.

"We can talk about it now," he says from the bottom of the steps. "Got any coffee?"

She doesn't know how to react to his voice. It's always so sudden when he speaks. "I'm not sure we've got coffee."

She can see him scoff under his breath before he says, "Alright, what about tea?"

Yukari pauses. Why not? "Sure. I can show you 'round the lobby, get you a little acquainted with the place."

He nods.

* * *

"The Dark Hour...how should I put this?" she mutters, before blowing her cup. "Okay. So you know how long it lasts, right?"

He takes a sip, "An hour."

Stupid question. It's in the name. But she's got to make sure.

Everyday clocks don't work in the Dark Hour. So unless he knew others acquainted with the Hour, or had some super-expensive motion-activated quartz watch back home, he must've counted. She decides to fridge that idea for the moment, "Do you know anybody else who can enter the Hour?"

He shakes his head. "You were the first."

She heaves out a lot of air through her nose. "Right. About that..."

"I know. Don't worry," he says, leaning in his seat. "You've recently awakened to it, right?"

She nods, "Yeah."

He juts out his mouth to one side, "First few days, I couldn't sleep. Wound up seeing things pretty much everywhere until the fourth day or so. So don't worry 'bout it." But then he faces her completely, almost seeming to smile despite the sallow in his eyes. "That being said...what's the gun really for?"

Back to the gun again. To the point. She can appreciate that. "You haven't seen the Shadows yet, have you?"

He narrows his eyes at her, shaking his head. "Okay, what do you mean by that?"

She looks at him sternly. "They're monsters. They attack anybody who isn't in a coffin, and they only appear in the Dark Hour. You were lucky you got to the dorm without facing any. My first night, I nearly...," she doesn't continue much from there, her gaze turning a little distant.

He doesn't at all seem like this is surprising to him. "So you've seen them...and the gun's supposed to help you fight them?"

She laughs mirthlessly, "I think the senpai would be better at showing you what the gun's for."

He just takes another sip from his tea, "So. There're monsters now. All this time..."

Yukari's immediately taken back to the faculty office, and she remembers the contents in his files.

She faces him. For an instant, she sees something twist in his face. It's placid again, just as quickly as it turned.

He's staring a thousand miles ahead.

She has to ask. "Arisato-kun...?"

The grey of his eye is below freezing when he turns and speaks, "How much about me do you people know?"

She might as well be staring down upon the ocean, hovering over the deepest place on the planet. It's an abyss, far too vast and seemingly bottomless in its scope. His voice is cold and his gaze stabs at her like a dagger.

She can't help herself from being scattered, "I-I...!"

And at that, his eyes soften. He purses his lips. He quickly turns away from her, his fringe flipping upward and exposing his other eye to her. "I'm sorry."

It was still closed.

The kind of agony he must have felt...

He's been all alone, too...right?

He puts his cup down onto the table, and makes motions to get up off his seat. He shifts past her; his voice is hoarse and rushed, nothing like the tone she's used to out of him. "I'll be in my room."

She's jolted, and as she turns to face him, she finds he's already halfway up the steps.

A part of her wants to reach him, bring him back down, talk to him and tell her everything; that she knows about his parents, about his history in school, that she's the same as he is, that he isn't alone—

But nothing comes, and he just treads up the stairs without even turning back to face her.

Right then and there, she just wants to grab the nothing that's in her chest and tear it out, along with everything else inside her.

* * *

"He's asleep?" asks the chairman, as he settles in the armchair adjacent to the sofa.

They're all in the lobby. Kirijo has her arms folded (again). Sanada-senpai's at the fridge, looking for a softdrink.

Yukari is in the sofa. Hands balled up, eyes groundwards; she doesn't even want to look at Kirijo or the chairman, but she speaks regardless.

"I tried waking him up a few minutes ago. Knocked several times on the door, then heard him snoring on the other side."

"What happened on the way here?" Kirijo asks.

"Why-?" Yukari pauses, seeing Kirijo's eyes.

Don't think I can't tell something's happened, she says but doesn't say.

So Yukari lets it all out. "He asked about what we knew about the Dark Hour. He first asked about the Evokers, and then the conversation led to Shadows."

Kirijo narrows her eyes, "He knows about them?"

"He didn't," Yukari responds, but then she remembers his eyes. "But then again..."

"What?"

"Something in him changed when I told him about what Shadows were, and then he got upset," for lack of a better term. "He asked how much we knew about him. I...got intimidated. He apologized, then headed up to his room. He's been there ever since."

Kirijo sighs. It's not out of disappointment; rather, she expected this to happen. "Well...I suppose this confirms it."

Yukari understands what she means completely. It was a theory that popped in her own head, looking back on his reactions, his files, and everything he's said thus far about the Hour. "You also think the Shadows had something to do with...?"

"Most likely," she says, sitting on a stool on the other side of the coffee table. "He's been aware of the Dark Hour for ten whole years. Considering the state his parents were in, I can certainly imagine a Shadow being behind it all."

Yukari feels a pang in her guts, "You don't think he'll want to join up with us, do you...?"

"He has every reason not to," Kirijo replies. "But it's up to him."

Yukari frowns. "Something about this feels all wrong..."

"There's still a chance he may join," Ikutsuki nods, seemingly to himself. "Even if only for the sake of vengeance..."

"Vengeance?" Yukari repeats, partly taken aback by that weighty word suddenly entering the conversation.

"His family was killed by a Shadow," Ikutsuki shrugs. "I can't imagine the sort of pain he must've felt. If I were him, I'd want nothing more than to tear the world asunder if it means getting back at whatever ruined my life."

"That's horrible," Kirijo can't help but mutter.

"But it's something," Sanada-senpai cuts in, dragging a chair from the kitchen over to the coffee table before sitting down. "It's a motive. It's something that drives him. Then again, I can't speak for him..."

Yukari doesn't like how forthright he sounds as he says that. "Are we even sure he has a Persona? What if he's like the chairman, what if he's just-I dunno, sensitive to the Hour?"

"I think he has the potential," says Ikutsuki. "It took me months of training and medical care before I could properly attune myself to the Hour. Unless he somehow gained access to all that, it's very likely he simply has a Persona of his own."

"We will still have to talk to him about this, of course," Kirijo says. "But perhaps now might not be the best time. I'm willing to give him another day to rest."

...it's only fair, of course.

Considering his past, it's only right to give him time to process all the information he's been faced with just today alone.

And besides. Who is Yukari to feel uncomfortable for his sake?

For all she knows, perhaps he really would like to join the team, if given the chance.

Or maybe he's traumatized from what happened to him all those years ago, and he'll only say _Yes_ to the offer because it's the only way he'll ever get back at the creatures who stole his life away from him. Maybe he's secretly mad right down to the bone and just chomping at the bit for a chance to let it all out in this volcanic and unending fury, letting his hate and rage burn into the planet. Maybe he hates and loathes and wants nothing more than to sink to the bottom of the world, dragging everyone and everything down with him in the deep dark abyss he has in his eyes.

Or maybe she's just overthinking things.

* * *

 _He doesn't remember what happened, after that._

 _When he wakes up in a hospital bed, he's met with a white ceiling. There's tubes sticking out of his arms, and bandages over multiple parts of his body. He can't move. He can't feel the temperature of the room. The ringing noise in his ears has stopped, a silence worming its way in the room, enough to crush him into little pieces._

 _It's at this point that he realizes he's only staring at the ceiling through one eye. He doesn't feel the other. There are bandages covering a fourth of his face and though the gauze is rough and he wants to just get it off he doesn't have the strength to. He can't even lift up an arm. He doesn't feel the other eye. He doesn't feel the other eye. Why?_

 _He turns his working **most likely remaining** eye to his left._

 _He sees a woman with brown hair. She's sat herself down on a small stool parallel from his bed. She's slumped up against the wall, sleeping with something like peace on her features. The woman is tall. She has curls in her hair, and she's wearing a long light-brown trenchcoat that stretches down to her legs. She's wearing brown loafers and black socks. He recognizes the woman. He doesn't remember her name, but he knows her from somewhere. She's a friend of his parents. She was the person whose house they visited in the first—_

 _When he remembers his parents, when he remembers seeing what had been left of them, only then does he feel something._

 _It's cold. It's draining. It's sucking out every ounce of blood and life he's got left in him, and he doesn't know if it'll ever stop. Staring at the ceiling, he doesn't even know if his heart's beating or if it's just stopped completely. Some part of him wonders if he could just lay in bed and slowly fall asleep forever, and then he stops wondering and hopes for it. Prays for it. But for some reason he's still breathing._

 _What he has left for a ribcage is being throttled. He feels his heart beating against his lungs, against the bone. It's pumping blood and forcing him to stay awake and alive. He wants it to stop. His body's now hurting all over. Where his left eye used to be, he feels something seeping out, it's causing him a pain he'd never wish upon anyone. The hammer cracking against his skull and the drills burrowing into the crevices of his brain cause wounds that are growing wider and wider._

 _He feels the blood trickle from the hole in his face, seeping into the gauze. He tries lurching his body upward, but all he gets for his trouble are spikes in his esophagus and hooks dragging his spine back down into the bed. He feels like he's being impaled on a thousand spikes, like he's being ripped apart from the inside out, like he'll never be able to wake up or sleep peacefully again._

 _The woman at his side wakes up, no doubt having been stirred from the sounds he's been making. She immediately rushes over to him. She's worried, she's frightened, she's on the verge of tears. She's trying to get him to calm down. She's hitting a button at the side of the bed, calling up for a nurse, trying to get him to stop moving. She's practically begging, pleading; when it's clear he can't hear her begs or her pleas, she begins clasping his hands and praying to whatever god's out there, praying that they'll just listen._

 _He's hacking up spit and bile and he's making such horrible noises. He's screaming, something large filling his throat and crushing his chest, and he wants the world to just vanish right then and there. He wants the whole planet to come crashing into the sun, and he wishes he'd never been born._

 _He can only make out three words, in his head. The most coherent thoughts he's made all day:_

 _I am nothing._


	3. Moonlight

"My name is Sakura Shiomi."

 _The woman with brown hair and the trenchcoat is staring deep into his eyes, and is calm. She's somber, but she knows she has to get this over with as quickly as she possibly can. The boy knows it, too, so he doesn't stop her from talking._

 _He's lying in his hospital bed, propped up against a bent mattress raising his upper body. The look in his eyes is something she never thought she'd see out of a child. Some part of her thinks he's half-dead already. Her thoughts drift to her own daughter, and she doesn't know if she'd be able to handle it if Kotone were to gain those eyes sometime in the future._

 _"I was a very good friend of your mother's," she says. She notices something gleam in his eyes when she said mother, but decides against letting this conversation drag out any further. "The day you were born, she told me she wanted me to be your godmother."_

 _He still holds those impassive eyes, glazed over and hardly giving off the impression that he's even paying attention. This is a lot harder than she thought it would be. She didn't think it'd have been that easy a bar to clear. But still. She'll have to push on._

"That day...your parents visited me and my daughter to see us off," _she begins, clearing her throat and trying to not be scared of a seven-year-old boy._ "We were planning to move to Kyoto the week after, and they wanted to take the opportunity to say goodbye."

 _He just keeps his eyes on her, not saying a word. The longer he holds his gaze, the harder this gets._

* * *

The next few days are uneventful, for both Yukari and Arisato.

She and he haven't exchanged words once, and so ready was he to distance himself from her that he literally got on the monorail an hour prior to her waking up. To avoid awkward conversation or to avoid her, it didn't matter. Point is that he doesn't particularly want to talk to her right now, talk to anybody in the dorm right now, and she obviously knows why; it's just, well, he's not making things easier for any of them.

Kirijo was willing to give him another week. Today is the fifth day in that week. And he's showing no signs of recovery. She didn't think it was possible, but somehow his eyes have gotten colder.

It's awkward to see him during class hours, and surprise surprise he's always sleeping, even when the teacher can plainly see him in broad daylight. During Classic Lit, Ekoda had to slap him upside the head with a small roll of paper just to wake him up, and even when he did stir, he remained lethargic for the rest of the class before sleeping again right as Ekoda walked out the door.

She hears the rumors spreading, of course. Yukari doesn't try to listen to them, herself, but she can't help but hear the things they say about him. They're not as overblown as say, calling Arisato the son of a yakuza head; though they lean towards framing him as a problem child at best, a delinquent, or at the very worst an outright criminal. Which isn't too far off base, considering the files on him...

Someone on student council must've spread this around. Arisato sleeping throughout the day certainly doesn't help his case, though perhaps with the things they say, it's best he remain asleep. Lest he go on a rampage and start cracking skulls with bats or stabbing guts with knives.

Okay, Yukari's going overboard too, but nobody can blame her. After what happened, the mere idea of looking him right in the eye terrifies her to her core. Dad always taught her to be open-minded when it comes to people, but he can't expect her to keep on upholding that in the face of people who're so...closed off.

But he's all alone, too.

She knows it's wrong to project on him her own feelings, but...

He knows what it's like. And he's had it so much worse off than her. It's cruel, what happened to him; even crueller that the Shadows were the ones who took it all away. And she's part of a team trying to draw him back into that world, that world he must desperately want to just run away from.

Why did he even come back here? All the city holds for him is a bunch of unwanted and painful memories.

She decides during third period, after what feels like ages of deliberation, to confront him at lunch.

She's in the classroom right now. In her seat, she hasn't turned to face him in the last thirty minutes. The bell's ringing, and people all over the classroom begin scrambling out the door, there's some sale on Lemon Bread or something, and Yukari has to mentally psyche herself up for the awkwardness that awaits her.

But of course, by the time Yukari manages to make herself face him, she finds that he's not even in his seat at all.

* * *

 _He's in the middle of the world and there's a ringing noise in the ear they smashed with a baseball bat. He does not think his eardrum's ruptured, but there's something seeping out the side of his head, where his temple should be, and for a moment he wonders if that sort of thing's supposed to be fatal until he blacks out and awakens with their shoes in his face and his face on the floor._

 _She's lying across from him. Face in the dirt, red hair covering her eyes._

 _Through black eyes he sees a foot rear back and then barrel towards him at what looks like the speed of light, but he manages to catch it with his left hand and toss it aside because he's the world. The guy who tried to cause a divot in place of Minato's nose is now falling and when his face plants itself against the tiles, Minato decides to rear himself up off the ground and get real dangerous._

 _He's surrounded by what looks like dozens of guys, but he's sure that they only look like they're dozens because his bleeding eyes are seeing triple the amount he's supposed to. They're all hulking over Minato, because of course they are, they're his senpai, they're from the basketball team; they're more physically fit than he'll ever be, what with the twigs he has for arms and the noodles he has for legs._

 _Minato's not afraid, even when they bark at him and at each other and he hears their words echo like they're speaking through megaphones. Whatever. Minato just needs to beat them, blind them, cripple them._

 _Then he'll be invincible._

* * *

She finds him on the rooftop. After an uncomfortably long period of asking people if they've seen a guy with blue hair and an emo haircut anywhere.

He's just sitting against the railing on the far end of the roof. A piece of bread in his mouth. He spots her, and he retains his dead-fish eye, and he doesn't move an inch from his place. The wind catches his fringe, and she sees that yes, his other eye is still closed.

From his posture to his eyes, Yukari can't help but think that if he wasn't eating any bread right now, she'd mistake him to be a corpse. She's holding her bento box, trying to justify herself and her place here and now. It was awfully embarassing, carrying it around and asking for where the new transfer student was at—it's bound to spread more unwanted rumors, but she can't care. Not now.

"Arisato," she says, dropping the kun because well, they're not close at all, "uh...," crap, say something, you've come this far Yukari, can't go stammering like an idiot now, "is it alright with you if I...?"

Stupid, Yukari, find your voice, speak to him, he's right there and you have all the time in the world —

He eyes her carefully for a moment or so. But then he just bites down on his bread, swallows, and takes out the rest from his mouth. His voice is a little muffled as he mutters, "You want to talk, right?"

She regains her spine, and faces him completely. "Yes."

He just stares at the ground, nodding. "Okay."

She walks over to him, slowly settling herself to his side. She feels a slight burn on her cheeks; though she's still a respectable distance, they're close enough to really face each other. They're literally eating lunch together, side-by-side, on the rooftop of their school; like this is some anime and they're some couple or whatever.

No. Don't think about that. Think about what's right here, right now. There's a guy who's been through some of the worst things you can imagine happening to someone right next to you, and he's willing to talk. He's willing to let you be here.

Don't screw this up. You won't get another chance.

"Arisato, I just wanted to say —"

"I'm sorry," he says suddenly.

She blinks, "Wh-what?"

He rubs the back of his head. "I shouldn't have been so...confrontational. You were just trying to answer my questions."

Her shoulders deflate. She doesn't know how to react to how honest he sounds. "No hard feelings. I understand."

He looks at her, something like curiosity in his eyes. Then he takes in a deep breath, and turns away from her. His voice is monotone as he says simply then, "I think I saw a Shadow once. A long time ago." And she moves in a little closer to him. Just a little. She keeps her eyes on him the whole while, and he does the same when she settles down. "I was born here. I told you I've been aware of the Hour for ten years, right? That first night, I was...I think I saw..."

He can't even say the rest, turning away from her again. His expression just hardens then, and she sees one of his hands shake. She has to ask him. She can't stop herself from it.

"Why did you come back?" He faces her. He knows she means no offense when she asked that question. It's completely legitimate. "If this is so hard for you...why did you come back?"

He shrugs, "Sorry. But that's for me to know."

She thinks to tell him about everything she'd read in his files. She wants to confess she knows about his parents, about the car and the Bridge, and something in her tries to tease out something more. She wants to confide in him, tell him about her family too, tell him he's not alone —

But what kind of person would she be if she were to just do all that?

She doesn't even know him. She just knows what made him.

"I'm sorry," she whispers then.

"For what?" he tells her. "You didn't do a thing. I wouldn't have blamed you if you'd have just left me alone. I know I made things...awkward."

What is she even doing? "I didn't mean to...dredge anything up. I'm sorry if I..."

"Like you said, you didn't mean to," he says semi-assuringly. "Don't worry. But," he clears his throat, "if you ask me, it's a little too convenient that of all the dorms I'm assigned to, I get the one filled with people awake during the...Dark Hour?"

She can't show signs of weakness. She still has her pride. "The chairman of the board help set us up. It's just everyone in the dorm who knows about the Hour. Like I told you."

And then he doesn't talk for another few moments, keeping his eyes groundwards. When he does, his voice is weak. "This whole school...feels wrong. I don't know why. But it does."

She takes in a deep breath, "You haven't the tower, have you...?"

"No," he says. "No I haven't. You said something about that, my first day here. What do you mean?"

She blinks. "Come midnight, the school becomes tall enough to touch the sky. And well, that's just the tip of the iceberg."

"Why?" he asks her. There's something earnest in his eyes as he asks her that. Something scared. "What happened here?"

"We don't know. We're trying to find out, every day. We haven't gotten anywhere. But we're trying. And the higher-ups thought we could've used a few more members. So they wafted through the names of possible candidates, people trying to make it to Gekkoukan." And she takes in a deep breath. Get it over with. "They found you, and dug up your past."

At this he frowns at her, obviously annoyed but restraining himself enough. "You think I'll join your club?"

"I don't. They're hoping you do. But we're not going to force you."

He opens his mouth, almost about to say something. Then he stops, and slumps against the railing. "That's fair, I suppose."

They're both silent again. Neither of them can find it in themselves to talk.

There is only one thing stopping her from explaining just everything. And that's fear. Fear that he may blow up on her, that she might say something wrong, that all this'll come crumbling down and the rift between them will grow even wider than it already is.

So she says nothing. And when she sees him, his expression is something she can't help but feel cold upon seeing.

"Look, it's not up to me. If you want to join the club or not, it's your choice. We won't force you if you refuse us," and then she stands up, leaning against the railing and looking down to face him. "We fight the Shadows. Plain and simple."

He doesn't respond. And she presses on, because trying to sugarcoat things won't help him or her in any way.

"Some nights, I wonder if I'll ever make it out alive. But I know what I want, and I know where I need to go. I just want you to remember that you have a choice in all this. And whatever you choose —"

She's caught by his eye. Silver, not grey; almost blue, in the light.

He gets up from off the ground. He faces her, his expression unreadable. But there is a tenderness in his eye. He's not slouched, he's not seething, he's anything but dead. For the first time in her life, Yukari thinks she's seeing someone in all that they are, and not just the masks they wear.

" —whatever you choose," she repeats, "you're not alone."

He blinks at her. And then he takes a deep breath, nodding. "Thank you."

She finds it in herself to smile. "Are you alright?"

He purses his lips. And he sees her.

The girl has brown, short hair. Milky, almond eyes. She's wearing a pink cardigan and she's got a smile that would win the whole world over. In her brown hair he sees auburn. In her almond eyes, he sees red. And in her smile, he sees a great many things he'd rather forget.

He just nods, his voice thick. "Yeah."

So of course she furrows her brows, "What's wrong?"

"We should head back to class," he says simply, something cold in his voice. "I'll tell you my decision tonight."

Yukari just follows him, staring at the back of his head. She's gotten somewhere. He may have gotten cold and distant again by the end of it. But she's somewhere, somewhere closer to him.

She doesn't know how her shoulders could have ever felt so light, how his own shoulders had gotten so broad in that short span of time they'd talked, or why her heart's pounding so hard against the walls of her chest.

Wait. What'd he say? "T-tonight?"

"Midnight sharp. Best if it's during the Hour, isn't it?"

"W-wait —"

"Come on."

And all Yukari can think of as she stares at the back of his head is just how much worse she's made all this.

* * *

 _He's in the middle of the world and there's a ringing noise in the ear they smashed with a baseball bat. He does not think his eardrum's ruptured, but there's something seeping out the side of his head, where his temple should be, and for a moment he wonders if that sort of thing's supposed to be fatal until he blacks out and awakens with their shoes in his face and his face on the floor._

 _She's lying across from him. Face in the dirt, red hair covering her eyes._

 _He sees a foot rear back and then barrel towards him at what looks like the speed of light, but he manages to catch it with his left hand and toss it aside because he's the world. The guy who tried to cause a divot in place of Minato's nose is now falling and when his face plants itself against the tiles, Minato decides to rear himself up off the ground and get real dangerous._

 _He's surrounded by what looks like dozens of guys, but he's sure that they only look like they're dozens because his bleeding eyes are seeing triple the amount he's supposed to. They're all hulking over Minato, because of course they are, they're his senpai, they're from the basketball team; they're more physically fit than he'll ever be, what with the twigs he has for arms and the noodles he has for legs._

 _Minato's not afraid, even when they bark at him and at each other and he hears their words echo like they're speaking through megaphones. Whatever. Minato just needs to beat them. Blind them, cripple them, hurt them._

 _Then he'll be invincible._

 _One of them (his name is Norimoto, Minato thinks) brings a fist to his guts and Minato trembles and keels over, but that's when Minato sees how open the space between their legs is. When a sudden heel mashes Norimoto's groin into itself, the guy sounds like a little girl as he squeals and pushes Minato aside._

 _Minato falls into the arms of another guy (Katsuhiro) who then kicks him so hard in the gut that Minato slips and loses his footing and crashes down to the ground face-first again. But he rises up again quick enough and he dashes to Katsuhiro's waist, wrapping his arms around him and pushing with everything he's got. Minato half-expects his arms to snap at the elbows then and there, but he manages enough strength to somehow tackle him into the lockers at his back. He screams then as well, grabbing Minato by the scruff of his uniform and throwing him to the side._

 _Minato slides along the ground and crashes into a garbage can, but he gets back up before they can pummel him again. When a third man whose name Minato doesn't know tries grabbing at him, something attacks his peripheral vision on both sides before his eyes are pressed like buttons._

 _She's come to. Took her long enough._

 _He screams, though she doesn't keep her fingers in too deep, and she wrenches his neck towards her before throwing him into the nearest wall._

 _She has auburn hair. Auburn, not red. But he conflates the two regardless. She smiles at Minato, and he's too stunned by how the bruises make her look so beautiful to really respond._

* * *

Yukari isn't angry.

What she's feeling isn't rage, though it's close to it, she'd figure. She wouldn't know, but it's a sort of...tumultuous irritation that oscillates between being directed at herself for being so timid as to let him step all over her, directed at him for being so needlessly closed-off and brusque, then back at her for even thinking about criticizing him when he's been through so much, then him for making her feel this way, then at Kirijo for letting him in the team in the first place, and so on.

She knows she's got no right to be so annoyed about this, but nobody can blame her. First guy in years she thinks she can relate to, and all she's done is bring up the past and drive a wedge between them both.

As much as she's loathe to admit it, part of her thinks that perhaps the reason she ever wanted to talk to him in the first place was to assuage her own guilt. She knows so much about him, but he knows next to nothing about her. But what's she supposed to do to remedy that? Tell him about her, her dad and her mom? There're lines that she can't cross, not yet. Not like this, not to him, at least not now.

She's so stuck up. Guy's lived with dead parents and a Dark Hour for ten whole years, but all she can think about is how he makes her feel so aggravated. And scared. And stressed. And fine. Angry. Whatever.

But now everything's coming to a head. Hour's come. Kirijo and Ikutsuki have already made their way up to the command room, and Sanada's left early to get some patrol done.

Knock, knock. "Arisato?"

Of all the people they'd have bring the guy up to the command room.

She hears a muffled Wait from behind the door, and after a few moments the barrier between them both just swings open.

He's kind of dishevelled. Fringe is split-ended, clothes are full of folds; still wearing the uniform even though it's been a few hours since class ended. Still looks like a brick wall. His other, closed eye is obscured enough by what's left of the blue in his hair. He has a folded piece of paper in his hand.

"Uh..." Say something. Say something. You can't be scared of him now. "They're waiting for you up on the fourth floor."

He narrows his eyes at her, but then his expression softens, as if he remembered something. He nods. "Alright."

"I'll take you to them."

He pauses. Then says, "You don't have to."

"No. They told me to bring you up to meet them."

He blinks, "Alright."

Again, it's an awkwardly silent walk; even if where they're headed is a mere few floors up. When they get there, Kirijo's already seated herself in a rolling chair, in front of what looks like a supercomputer with stacked bookshelves on either side. Ikutsuki is in an armchair adjacent to the coffee table in the middle of the room. Yukari watches Arisato lightly brush past her, sitting himself in the couch across from Kirijo. Yukari decides to take her seat next to him.

Crosses are cast upon the carpet from the light blaring through the windows, which certainly doesn't help. Yukari still has trouble getting used to the constant gnawing sensation at the back of her head, and how black spots appear every so often in her vision.

In those ten years, how long did it take him before he got used to all this?

"Good evening," says Ikutsuki, "I'm the Chairman of the Board for your school. Shuji Ikutsuki...hard to say, isn't it? That's why I don't like introducing myself. Even I get tongue-tied sometimes..." Ikutsuki quickly realizes that Arisato isn't amused by his attempts at making small talk, so decides to just cut to brass tacks. "The night that you came here, you had to have noticed the signs. The streetlights were out, nothing was working, coffins were lining the streets. We believed that you were capable of entering the Dark Hour, but it's since been brought to our attention...that you've known of it far longer than we'd anticipated."

Yukari tries to scan Arisato's features for something, anything. His sole grey eye is blazing, but that's all she can glean, and she doesn't know if it's the Hour worming its way into her vision or just the light from the windows hitting his sclera.

"How long have you people had your eye on me?" he says bluntly, keeping his eye firm on Kirijo.

She is the one who answers him, before Ikutsuki can. "After you applied for a Gekkoukan scholarship, we dug through your records and from them gleaned the possibility that you were capable of entering the Dark Hour."

"How would you find that out through my records?"

"We have our ways," is all she answers, and she changes the subject quickly enough for the whole topic to change. "We were surprised to find out you've been aware of the Hour for a decade now. And judging from your conversations with Takeba, what's even more surprising is that you aren't aware at all of the Shadows."

Yukari can't bear to look at him, now that her name's been brought up.

"So you know nothing about this Dark Hour yourselves," Arisato says, voice cold. Eye dark, but wide. "But these Shadows...are a danger all on their own?"

Kirijo is silent. Yukari notices something cross her face, something resigned.

Ikutsuki answers back, "Exactly. Normal people don't realize it, since they're all sleeping inside their coffins. But every once in a while, a poor soul ends up fully awake during the Hour, and...is preyed upon."

Kirijo cuts in, "A Shadow feeds on the mind of its prey; the victim becomes a living corpse. They're responsible for most of the incidents on the news, if not all of them."

Arisato's brow raises, "The news...?"

"Iwatodai's suicide rate's risen exponentially since the arrival of the Hour," Ikutsuki responds, and Arisato doesn't even budge an inch, doesn't even blink at being told that. "But those who survive...end up afflicted with Apathy Syndrome."

Yukari's startled by how quickly Arisato lifts his head at the mention of Apathy Syndrome. She's able to see his face and immediately she feels her chest freeze, as he glares at everyone except her.

"So, then —?" he stammers out, his voice strained; though he keeps that same placid expression on his face that he's always kept, his voice is cold and firm. Though he remains seated, he's hunched over and he's clasped his hands, the paper crinkling in his fists. He then unfolds it, and just as quickly slams it down onto the table.

The look in his eye alone is enough to freeze Yukari's spine, but she tears away from it to see what he's presented to everyone —

The drawing's of a nigh-formless sort of creature; large and imposing, swathed in dark. A wide, black mass with what looks like frilled tendrils emerging from its sides, helmed with what vaguely resembles a dragon's skull.

Yukari pales. He must have seen this the night—

"You know what happened to my parents," he grunts out to Ikutsuki and Mitsuru. "This is a Shadow?"

The latter's the first to reply to him, but she does not answer his question verbally; she just gives him a look which he returns in kind. "On paper, we're classified as a school club. But in reality, we're dedicated to defeating the Shadows, and ending the Dark Hour."

"How do you fight them?" Arisato asks, narrowing his eyes and tenting his hands.

"Although rare, there are those who can function during the Dark Hour. Some may even awaken to a power that enables them to fight the Shadows," says Mitsuru.

"And what would you call that kind of power?" For the briefest moment, Yukari sees hints of a smile lining his mouth, and she thinks her greatest fears are being fully realized.

Then the monitor blares. Screens flash red and Kirijo whirls around in her seat, Ikutsuki getting up off his and standing behind her. Yukari's eyes grow wide, she remembers that Akihiko-senpai's out on patrol, this is him calling the dorm back —

"Is that you, Akihiko?" Kirijo grunts out, frantically hitting buttons and adjusting dials, trying to manage frequencies and adapt to the situation as best she can —

"You're not gonna believe this, this thing is huge...!" Sanada garbles out through choppy audio and the sounds of something in the distance breaking ground and Yukari thinks she hears rumbling not too far outside the dorm, "Unfortunately, I don't have time to talk —it's chasing me —I'm almost there...!"

Dear God. "He's bringing that thing here!?"

"A Shadow...of all nights...?" mutters Ikutsuki.

For a moment Yukari thinks she hears him laughing on the other end as Sanada grunts through pants and groans, "It's not an ordinary one! Arm's busted and can't lose it!"

The audio fizzles out, fading into something shrill and inhuman, and all at once Yukari feels worms in her ears, biting at the drums and drilling into her brains, it's a roar that's louder than a jet engine and somehow she hears it right next to her —

"Akihiko?" Kirijo cries out, "Akihiko!?" then whirls around, "Mr. Chairman!"

Ikutsuki nods, "Be careful." He turns to Yukari, "Neither of you are prepared for this —"

The ground trembles. Yukari's nearly brought to her knees. She's heard glass shatter from somewhere, concrete and stone blasting out into the dark. Then another roar, screeching like some cosmic error being birthed into reality, and the centipedes gnaw at her earlobes and hollow out her skull until all that's left is the fear she thought she'd left behind.

She grabs Arisato's hand unconsciously and dashes out the door, not noticing the vacant yet angry expression he's got as she follows Ikutsuki. By the time they all make it back down to the ground floor, Kirijo's tending to Akihiko's lacerated arm, and Yukari realizes she's never seen so much red come out of somebody like this —

"Get ready to be surprised...it'll be here any second," Sanada grins, his voice guttural and strained.

"Your arm's letting out gallons by the minute and all you can do is laugh," grunts Kirijo as another crashing noise makes the world tremble.

You've got to be kidding. Here and now. So suddenly?

Kirijo whips out an Evoker and exclaims, "Mr. Chairman, please head for the command room! Takeba, you and Arisato escape out the back!

What, "B-but, what about you two?"

Voice firm, "We'll stop it here. You led it to us, Akihiko, so I'm afraid you'll have to fight."

Another grin, like this is some game, "Like I had a choice!" he whips his head to Yukari, "Takeba, what're you waiting for!? Go!"

Yukari nods vigorously as the senpai bolt out the door, Ikutsuki dashes up the stairs, and she practically drags Arisato along with her; she doesn't even see his expression, doesn't even care how he's registering all this, because they need to get out and they need to survive and they can't just stay here and wait for the world to end on them —

Once she realizes she's made it all the way to the back door, just past the kitchen and dining area, her hands fidget on the knob and she's frantic and scared and hoping for all of this to end, but she's got to at least get them to safety.

"Come on, come on, come on —"

"Away from the door," Arisato cuts in.

"H-huh!?"

"Now!"

She manages to dodge backward as something crashes into the wooden frame from the other side. Backing into Arisato, she pushes herself and him out of dodge as some black horrid amorphous thing slithers and slops around at her feet, it's no larger than a tire and it lifts what looks like its head up, revealing a blue face with hollow abysses for eyes as it snarls like an animal that shouldn't exist —

Then all of a sudden she sees Arisato grab something at the counter, and before she knows it, dark gunk splashes all over her legs and skirt —when she can see again, she stifles herself from hyperventilating further as she calls out, "D-dear _God_ —" because he's just broken the dorm microwave over a Shadow's head.

Once he grabs her by her shoulders, she comes to. "You okay?"

She blinks and sees something so clear in his grey eye, but before she can respond she hears more guttural screeching noises. Dark shapes with blue faces start barging through what's left of the door and lock their eyeholes squarely on the two of them, she sees Arisato grit his teeth and pant, he's beginning to breathe like she's breathing —

"C-come on!" she grabs Arisato by the arm, his expression's empty and his eye's wide, "We need to get out of here —!"

 _"Takeba!"_

K-Kirijo — "Y-yeah!?"

 _"The one we're fighting isn't the one Akihiko saw! Keep away from the streets!"_

God, please, no.

"Upstairs!" she cries out, and manages to pull him along with her.

He's still keeping his eye on the black masses storming through the back entrance, even as she drags him up the stairs.

He could swear they're talking, but in a language he doesn't want to understand.

* * *

 _He's in the middle of the world and there's a ringing noise in the ear they smashed with a baseball bat—s he's lying across from him, face in the dirt, red hair covering her eyes, through black eyes he sees a foot rear back and then barrel towards him at what looks like the speed of light, but he manages to catch it with his left hand and toss it aside because he's the world—_

 _He's surrounded by what looks like dozens of guys, but he's sure that they only look like they're dozens because his bleeding eyes are seeing triple the amount he's supposed to—Minato's not afraid, even when they bark at him and at each other and he hears their words echo like they're speaking through megaphones, Minato just needs to beat them, then he'll be invincible—_

 _Invincible, invincible, never let me die— Norimoto brings a fist to his guts and Minato trembles and keels over, but Minato mashes Norimoto's groin and the guy sounds like a little girl as he squeal—Katsuhiro who then kicks him so hard in the gut that Minato slips and loses his footing and crashes down to the ground—Minato manages enough strength to somehow tackle him into the lockers at his back and he screams—_

 _Kotone's thumbs are in a man's eyes and she wrenches his neck towards her before throwing him into the nearest wall and she has auburn hair; auburn, not red, but he conflates the two regardless, and she smiles—_

 _Someone from behind grabs her from under her shoulders, and she knocks his nose with the back of her head in response. Red flows out of his nostrils as he backs away and lets her go, and she whirls around and boots his stomach, sending him ten feet away._

 _Minato gets the feeling of hairs standing at the back of his neck, then he turns to face his next assailant and kicks his knee. Off-balance now, the guy drops the garbage can he'd held up in an attempt to use it against Minato—and when that happens, she grabs it the minute it clatters along the ground._

 _It's weighty in her arms and still half-filled with garbage that's rotted enough to make mountain goats puke. When she tosses it at them, Minato realizes only after the fact that she's thrown rats and roaches innumerable, and everybody's screaming and trying to get the gunk off of them, one of them's squirming, trying to get something out of his clothes, something's biting his belly button—_

 _And Kotone laughs as she kick the can at them, scrambling to get away as she grabs Minato's hand_ ** _—_** _h_ _er laugh is contagious, Minato realizes, as he lets out something guttural and haughty from the back of his throat, everyone behind him screaming bloody murder._

 _She and he hold hands the whole time, even after they lose them, and when they get back to what they can call a home they jump into a mattress and consume each other, the blood still flowing out of their faces._

 _She has auburn hair. Not red. But he conflates the two, regardless._

 _He's in a bed with her, staring at the ceiling of his room. The ceiling fan is spinning on high, and when he turns to face his window he sees a black sky with a blue moon. Light dives down his window and paints her body, or at least the parts of her body that aren't covered by his bedsheets._

 _She's clinging on to him, her chest against his arm and her head nuzzling against his neck. The fact that she can sleep so peacefully and hold him so plainly makes him feel colder than he'd ever felt before. Coherent thought escapes him now; his mind's mostly blank static with the occasional horrific thought every now and again._

 _Feeling her breathe, he can recall easily how they were just moments ago. Both of them tumbling in his bed, he grabbed her and felt her and took all of her in him, his coarse palms against her porcelain skin. He strained her and made her squeal, heard her call out his name; they had been manic and restless and as the night wore on, as she loomed over him and bore her red eyes into his soul, her body became just an amorphous mass of arms and legs — hanging over him like the bars of a steel cage._

 _Inevitably, she awakens, and when she does she immediately moves herself. She doesn't smile that demure smile he'd always loved to see out of her, and she refuses to let her eyes meet his. She then lifts herself up from the sheets, adjusting herself so she can swing her leg over his waist, puts her head directly on his chest and whispers..._

 _Why remember all this now?_


	4. Facedown

The green sky's swirling its clouds overhead, spiralling slowly yet madly as the yellow full moon glows ever brighter than Minato thinks he'd ever seen it.

He realizes he's on the roof of the dorm now; Takeba's locked the door behind them shut, for all the good that's going to do. Peace of mind can't hurt anybody, he figures.

Takeba's eyes are wide, terrified, but she's using everything she has to keep herself mostly under control. It's at this point Minato realizes his hand is shaking. And he doesn't know how long it's been since that's happened.

"A-Arisato, you okay!?"

"I'm fine, what about you?"

"We should be safe, relatively I guess —"

 _"Takeba, do you read me!?"_

What is it now!? "Y-Yes! I hear you!"

 _"We're coming to you! Ready yourselves!"_

Yukari pales. Coming to —

No.

A pounding noise, growing louder and louder. Yukari hears windows shatter, brick and stone come apart, and she thinks she can feel the whole building wrench inwardly from the weight of whatever's hanging off its side.

A single black hand rises up from the far edge of the roof, clutching at the edge of the rooftop. Its fingers glow pale yellow in the light of the moon as more angular limbs rise from behind it.

It must havee a dozen, no, a hundred arms, most carrying a serrated blade that must exceed six feet in length. Yukari peers at its black body in an attempt to even try to understand what it is, and realizes that it has no real body to speak of; it's a giant mass of arms, undulating and folding in on each other in this chaotic attempt to grab at or slash at anything that comes into its path.

One of its many hands holds a blue, hollow-eyed mask, and Yukari's brought back to one of Kirijo's lectures on Shadows and Arcana —Magician?

It's now lunging at her and each of its blades shimmer in the moonlight as its whole body lurches and writhes in non-angles and non-dimensions. Noise begins filling Yukari's ears as she rips the Evoker out its holster and presses it to her forehead almost on instinct.

Arisato's calling out her name as the creature continues charging towards her on some mad warpath, it's lifting its blade over her head as she's breathing and seeing a thousand armed monstrosities coming from the dark spots in her eyes —they're screaming and they're laughing, they're grabbing her and licking her and tearing her apart limb from limb, she can see them grab at her guts and pull her intestines out, the blood showering down what's left of her body as they grizzle her flesh down to the bone and even if she manages to pull the trigger and end it all anyway she realizes Io only has healing spells —

"Takeba —!"

Arisato pushes her out of dodge before the blade can bisect her right down the middle. She's tumbling for a second and when both her and Arisato hit the ground she realizes how utterly lucky both of them are to have not been cut apart by the sword right then and there —but the mass of arms continues writhing and thrashing, she hears it screech as the blue of its mask glows in the dark of the Hour.

And Arisato's the only thing standing between her and the beast.

He'll die and it'll be her fault. The guy's lost his parents and he's come all the way back to the place he lost them, and everything he's ever fought for is gonna be gone because she's such a stupid failure she can't even do the one thing she needs to do to get things done. And the one guy she thought she could have a connection with throughout all this will at best be maimed for life, because she's too frozen to move.

And she'll never see Dad again, never get any answers, and all the words she'd exchanged with her mother months before any of this had ever even happened will be the last things she'll have ever said to her.

But then she sees something silver in Arisato's hands.

Where's her Evoker?

Arisato raises the steel pipe overhead, and, knowing he's now nowhere else but the present, shouts: " _COME ON!_ "

* * *

 _She has auburn hair. Not red. But he conflates the two, regardless. The sensation he gets when he dreams about her is always a feverish sort._

 _He's in a bed with her, staring at the ceiling of his room. The ceiling fan is spinning on high, and when he turns to face his window he sees a black sky with a blue moon. Light dives down his window and paints her body, or at least the parts of her body that aren't covered by his bedsheets._

 _She's clinging on to him, her chest against his arm and her head nuzzling against his neck. The fact that she can sleep so peacefully and hold him so plainly makes him feel colder than he'd ever felt before. Coherent thought escapes him now; his mind's mostly blank static with the occasional horrific thought every now and again._

 _Feeling her breathe, he can recall easily how they were just moments ago. Both of them tumbling in his bed, he grabbed her and felt her and took all of her in him, his coarse palms against her porcelain skin. He strained her and made her squeal, heard her call out his name; they had been manic and restless and as the night wore on, as she loomed over him and bore her red eyes into his soul, her body became just an amorphous mass of arms and legs — hanging over him like the bars of a steel cage._

 _He sees her now, sleeping like a baby. Strands of her red hair are dangling over her face. Her breath is warm against his chest, and as he takes note of every pore on her cheeks he wonders what it would be like to kiss her again. He puts a hand to her stomach and it feels so warm, feels so alive — and as he dreams of kissing her, he thinks of biting down on her lips so hard her face comes off; he thinks of grabbing her guts and tearing them out and letting all the red fly; he thinks of every single little thing he should be doing, and the dull aching feeling numbing his chest cavity because of what he'd just done. He's stared at the ceiling for so long he doesn't even know if he can blink anymore; the more the fan spirals, the more he can feel the seconds sinking into minutes sinking into hours._

 _Even when the world turns green and the yellow moonlight descends upon the world, the disgust he feels at the iron seeping in his nose is nothing compared to the feeling of having her by his side._

 _Inevitably, she awakens, and when she does she immediately moves herself. She doesn't smile that demure smile he'd always loved to see out of her, and she refuses to let her eyes meet his. She then lifts herself up from the sheets, adjusting herself so she can swing her leg over his waist, puts her head directly on his chest and whispers,_ "I think I'm in love with you."

 _—now she's naked, on the floor of her room. He sees bruises all over her body, welts over her eye; she's missing two of her front teeth and her shoulders have been clawed at, there's blood on her nails and she's staring at him like she's mad._

 _Soon the green of the night sky darkens and everything begins to fade. The room, the walls, the sheets, her; they all disappear and in their place is a world darker than black. Soon enough, images pass him by in a blur. A young boy wearing striped pajamas, handing him a contract and speaking of responsibilities;_ "No one can escape time," _Minato remembers hearing the boy say,_ "it delivers us all to the same end."

 _When you punch someone or something hard enough, your hand's bound to shatter and splinter into bone. But you can't stop, even when fragments are popping right out of your knuckles. Because chances are, if you've come that far, there's more than one guy you're fighting —or the guy's so insufferable the pain's just worth it anyway. So when you stand there with bloody knuckles and when you look at everyone right in their eyes, you see what you need to do, because you're just one man against dozens._

 _And so you fight and keep on fighting tooth-and-nail, because otherwise they win and you lose and they'll be pissing on your grave for ages, laughing and jeering at how you died, you died because you blew your hand open and you blew your hand open because you were too stupid to give up. So ride the blood, sweat, and tears to the very end. And don't care about honor, don't care about if you'll kill 'em or injure them or whatever. They don't care about you, so why should you give them that mercy?_

 _So you do everything. The nearest pipe wrench. The garbage bag filled with rotting food and diseased rats. The barbed wire attached to a stick. Your thumbs are skinny, you can jam them in their eyeholes and hear them scream._

 _You fight, you sleep, you fight again, and then repeat until you die._

 _Minato Arisato has lived for seventeen years, and will most likely die before he even reaches twenty. This is something he's internalized the day he survived his fifth street fight; it's a meaningless life he's lived, and it's a meaningless death he'll deserve._

 _Up against something like this, his death is all but assured._

 _But he's not the only one here._

* * *

Red hair dangles over his eye, and he thinks he hears someone giggling at him. The sounds gnaw at his ears and they're almost as painful as the cracks in his ribs and the lightning running through his spine. Though he wants to stand, his body remains locked on the ground, because for the life of him he can't even feel his legs.

"A-Arisato...!"

Yukari scrambles over to Arisato's nigh-paralyzed half-corpse and doesn't know what to do next. The gun clattered away from her to God knows where just a few moments ago—the mass of arms thrashes and gesticulates because in the end it's just some unknowable sludge with limbs, it's not just straight-up eviscerating them because it wants to savor their fear, Yukari's absolutely sure of that—

Arisato had been brave to try and rush the Shadow with nothing but a steel pipe. The Shadow unfortunately just used one of its lengthy arms to grab his pant leg before he could've even swung the pipe. A single slam to the ground was all it took for Arisato's skeleton of a body to turn into useless mush.

He's not dead. He's breathing, and Yukari hopes to God he's not paralyzed, she darts her eyes every which way just to see if she can catch a glimpse of her Evoker anywhere, how could she have been so stupid to drop it so carelessly!?

In the Shadow's wild thrashings, Yukari swears she hears it scream and the noises it makes are like a baby's, oscillating between a crying wail and an innocent giggle. It doesn't even seem to notice her or Arisato as it continues lashing at nothing, so she takes this opportunity to kneel and grab Arisato's underarms.

"Can you move?" she asks, and she feels like she's screaming those words, but Arisato just hears a whisper.

Weakly, he nods, and grunts, and pushes himself off the ground and out of her arms. He's not paralyzed, but Yukari's sure if he strains his body any more tonight, he eventually will be.

"—gun," she finally hears him, "Y-your gun—"

"I-I lost it," she mutters, eyes kept on the untamable abomination still wrenching and shambling its way across the roof—

Then Yukari hears something barge through the door. Whipping her head around to see if one of the blobs below ground had somehow managed to storm its way up to the roof, instead she sees a woman with long red hair—

"Penthesilea!"

And then something illustrious forms into the dark green world. It is twenty feet tall, maybe even thirty—adorned in raiments fit for a queen. Yukari notices her gleaming steel breastplate and corset first; then the stitches of the black stockings covering her disproportionately long legs; then the knight's helm fitted with a golden crown; finally, the two lengthy blades in her hands.

Shattered scattered lights dance around her like some sort of light show, and even the multi-armed abomination has to take a bit of a step back and let it be. Until the knightess lunges forward, then their blades cause sparks in the night, and it's only at this point Yukari realizes Mitsuru's telling her to—

"—get Arisato out of there!"

Grabs his underarms again, go, come on, gotta get out of here before—

"Your _gun..._ "

"I don't have it—"

"Find it then," he pushes himself out her grip and tries getting himself up off the ground with liquid arms and a useless spine, "I'll distract it."

He _is_ crazy— "You can't even move," she says as she grabs his arms again, "it picked you up the second you moved in on it—"

"Then I'll do better next time," he says, practically coughing out each word, "find your gun, use whatever you have, just do it."

"I can't leave you, you'll die—"

"If you don't, we're all dead," he says plainly, "and you've got more experience with these things than I do."

No I'm not, I'm terrible, I nearly died my first night 'cause I froze up like some lost puppy and was almost ripped and raped and disemboweled in the middle of the street and the only reason I survived is because Kirijo let me live to fail another day—

"If you won't let me go," he cuts into her mind-ramblings, "then just leave me here, and find the gun. Put me up against the wall, or whatever."

Yukari's so enraged that it took her this long to realize he must have a death wish.

Then someone else barges in through the door. His arm's gashed and bleeding and limp, he's pushing a gun to his head and he's smiling—

"Akihiko—" Yukari thinks she hears Kirijo through the sounds, the clashing of steel and the screaming, something about "—arm's still wounded, get Takeba and Arisato—!"

Then another wail cries out into the night as Penthesilea rears her blades up and makes a stab. Without a hitch, Sanada-senpai shoves his gun into its holster and runs to the two half-corpses far from the battle.

"S-senpai, you're—"

"Doesn't matter," he groans, "c'mon, let's get you two out of here."

"What about her?" grunts Arisato.

"She'll just have to take care of herself—"

Then something crashes behind him, something massive and gleaming. He whirls around to see it, but can't even stand a few seconds of it before his mind goes numb.

Giant black hands rip apart steel armor, person-sized steel tears into what's left. Penthesilea fights and stabs even though she's been thrown and thrashed and mangled, but in the end all that's left of her are light particles where her body used to be. Mitsuru Kirijo isn't screaming, even though she must feel like she's being eaten from the inside out, and when Sanada-senpai turns to face her, he just sees her kneeling to the ground, holding both sides of her head and struggling to even stay lucid.

Gun to his forehead. "Polydeuces!"

Its hair is long and flowing and yellow, it might as well glow, the way it flares off into the night. Its torso alone is as large as a small car. Its arms've got enough muscle to carry ten elephants, and with those arms it carries the blue-faced nightmare off the roof and down to street level.

"Nobody down there," senpai wheezes, "won't be able to hold it for long enough, downstairs is cleared completely, it'll be back up here in a few—AAARGH!"

He keels over, knives in his brains and lungs and neck and Yukari's losing it too, "Senpai—"

"Get outta here right now!"

Yukari grabs Arisato, who can find it in himself to stand, and though she's running with him he's staggering behind. Black arms rise up from the side of the building they were at and Akihiko screams as he falls over, the arms have Polydeuces in their grip and they're squeezing at his arms—Polydeuces could punch through steel like it's paper, but they're being shattered into blue glass—

Before Yukari can get Arisato back to the door, the Shadow slams the remnants of Polydeuces into the ground, right in front of them. It's staring at them, with its blank white eyes, missing more than half of itself. It's not even a few seconds later when it fades, and leaves Yukari at the mercy of a monster, with only a battered skinny kid with blue hair at her side.

The beast rises and its arms encompass the world. They're broken and moving about in directions arms shouldn't be able to, widening and shrinking and flailing about like mad—

—but it's at this point that she notices the gun at her feet.

Her gun.

She lunges at it, grabs it, points it to her chin and tugs at the trigger, but before the gun can even sound off, she's fifteen feet in the air. Her stomach's letting loose an earthquake, and honestly she's quite lucky the creature didn't just impale her with one of its swords. When she lands, she slides across the ground and lets out what must be gallons of blood, leaving a streak of it along the floor of the roof as her back slams into the ridge of the rooftop.

She's fading fast. The spots in her eyes are getting too much too soon. She can't feel her arms. She sees Arisato. Staring at the blue mask, staring at the multitude of arms.

The gun is in his hands.

* * *

 _She has auburn hair. Not red. But he conflates the two, regardless. The sensation he gets when he dreams about her is always a feverish sort._

 _Even when the world turns green and the yellow moonlight descends upon the world, the disgust he feels at the iron seeping in his nose is nothing compared to the feeling of having her by his side._

 _She then lifts herself up from the sheets, adjusting herself so she can swing her leg over his waist, and whispers,_ "I think I'm in love with you."

 _She's naked, on the floor of her room, and she's missing two of her front teeth,her shoulders have been clawed at, there's blood on her nails and she's staring at him like she's mad._

 _Ages pass and when he enters the dorm for the first time, he's surprised to find a young boy in the lobby, amidst the green and the blood on the walls._

"You're late," _the boy says,_ "I've been waiting a long time for you."

 _The boy looks to be ten years old, and he's wearing striped black-and-white pajamas. His eyes are a dull shade of grey and his hair's a dark blue. Unnaturally pale skin, a mole under his eye. He snaps a bony finger and in an instant the boy is right in front of Minato, gesturing to a signature notebook on the counter._

"Now if you want to proceed, please sign your name there. It's a contract. There's no need to be scared. All it says is that you'll accept full responsibility for your actions."

 _Minato is impassive as he takes the pen, and signs his name without even an inkling of question. The only line on the paper is coupled with an ominous set of words: I chooseth this fate of mine own free will. And the rest of the paper is literally Lorem Ipsum ad nauseam._

"No one can escape time," _the boy then says, clutching at the signature book,_ "it delivers all to the same end. You can't plug up your ears or cover your eyes." _In a flick of his wrist, the book vanishes. He outstretches his arm as the dark envelops him, and Minato bears witness to the little boy sinking into the abyss stretching out all over the world._ "And so it begins..."

 _You fight, you sleep, you fight again, and then repeat until you die._

 _Minato Arisato has lived for seventeen years, and will most likely die before he even reaches twenty. This is something he's internalized the day he survived his fifth street fight; it's a meaningless life he's lived, and it's a meaningless death he'll deserve._

 _Up against something like this, his death is all but assured._

 _But he's not the only one here._

 _A girl with brown hair and a pink cardigan._

"Some nights, I wonder if I'll ever make it out alive. But I know what I want, and I know where I need to go. I just want you to remember that you have a choice in all this. And whatever you choose—you're not alone."

 _She put it to her head. The world spinning. Kotone smiling, Kotone crying, bleeding out, missing a tooth—Mom and Dad in a car. Car crushing them, crushing him, mangled corpses, missing eyes and body parts—Sakura reaching out for him, begging him to hold her hand, smiling and crying, he's weeping over her—I don't want you to go—how could you leave us—the train is rushing through the world and he's staring at her, she's smiling but she looks so sad, she's saying nonsense and he can't stop her—_

 _—he's on a train and Takeba's with him, Takeba's telling him what Shadows are and he breaks down because he thinks he knows what killed his parents and sent him to Sakura-san and sent him to Kotone, she's giving him her hand and she's smiling and she thinks she can win him over with that smile—_

"Come with me. I love you."

 _The gun is in his hands. Now it's to his head. Finger on the trigger._

"Go on..." _The boy from nights ago._ "Can't you do it?"

* * *

"Per...so...na."

He finds it in himself to stand upright. The pain in his back fades as his head goes completely light, and the hard line that once formed along his mouth is now a smile wider than his cheeks can handle. Lights surround him as his grey eye glows blue and he lets out the closest thing to a laugh he's had in a long time as a red-eyed creature rises from his skull.

Its face is gun-metal grey and its joints are steel. Its whole body looks like a cross between metal and porcelain, with speaker holes coming out of his chest. He's wearing a red scarf and as he rises up into the world, he speaks with a voice that could make trees bow and worlds tremble.

 **"Thou art I, and I am thou . From the Sea of thy Soul, I cometh. I am Orpheus, Master of Strings."**

Yukari can't think, can't hear, can't feel anything. All she does is see, and what she sees is what might possibly be the most beautiful thing she has and will ever witness.

And Orpheus roars and screams, and from the way Arisato's head rears back, Yukari thinks he must be euphoric—but then he grabs the sides of his head and screams, and then Orpheus lets out a wail, he's convulsing like mad and his limbs are bending and breaking, he's like a puppet on strings—

Then something else breaks loose.

It's larger than the sky, it seems. White arms, a cape made of coffins, hanging by chains. Leather robes drape its form, decorated with silver buttons and linings. It shambles and it roars and it's big enough for its body to overshadow the giant moon hanging above them all. Upon its head is a helm like a dragon's skull, like a tyrannosaur's skull, and it rears one of its arms back and lets loose a sword sharp enough to slice through the planet—

It grabs the mass of arms and presses it down, cutting and piercing and sending the black loose out into the world. Rivulets of Shadow-gore spread out onto the cracks of the roof as the black pools underneath. It tries to escape and lash out and fight back, but even with its millions of arms and billions of blades, it can't overcome the Death ripping it to meat shreds. Limbs fly and blades shatter, and Yukari thinks she can hear biting noises, but she isn't sure. The sound is horrible, like a thousand women screaming as their babies eat them from the inside out, like a child whose bones are turning into acid, like a man ripping out his guts from his own stomach, there's spots in her eyes and she wants to run away and hide in herself forever.

But just as it began, it ends.

The creature rises in the moonlight and releases one last roar, screeching into the night and letting the world know nightmares the likes of which it didn't know it could've had.

Yukari blinks just once, and sees Orpheus where the beast had been.

What's left of the Shadow is indescribable, formless—it's not even a fraction of what it once was, and its pieces aren't even moving. Arisato turns to her as Orpheus fades off into the yellow of the moon, and as he walks over he can't make it four steps until he falls flat on his face.

Oh no.

Yukari gets up, endures the pain in her guts, and runs over to his body. Sanada and Kirijo follow her over to Arisato's corpse and she tries, oh she tries. "H-hey, come on! Are you okay!?"

"He did it...," whispers Akihiko, "what even was that...?"

Kirijo just squints, "Multiple Personas..."

"Come on! Can you hear me!?" cries Yukari, to no avail, "Answer me!"

* * *

 _Then there's rushing gusts of wind, and when he realizes he's clothed in his Gekkoukan uniform, he touches ground upon a checkerboard floor._

 _Of all the things to see in this damp and dark world, he sees a blue door. The door opens, and he enters._

 _The room is large; constantly ascending upward, like an elevator. Steel frames and arches loom, the chain-linked back wall allowing the lights outside the room to blare through. Hanging overhead is a clock as large as a man, with hands that won't stop spinning. He's in a blue chair, the back of which has been constructed to resemble that of a lyre._

 _Across from him are two people; the first one he notices is an amber-eyed lady as tall as he, donned in the (of course blue) attire of an elevator attendant. The second is a hunchbacked old man wearing a suit, one who's got a nose as long as his arm, and eyes so large they practically bulge out of his skull. The old man is sitting in a blue couch, the attendant standing by his side. Between them and Minato is a round desk covered in a sheet._

 _The old man snaps his fingers, and immediately Minato catches sight of a contract on the table — the contents simply read:_

I chooseth this fate of mine own free will  
 _Arisato Minato_

 _And the old man speaks,_ "Welcome to the Velvet Room, my dear young man."

* * *

 **A/N: And we're done with the Magician "Arc," I guess. I transplanted the last third of Chapter 3 onto here, because I thought the flow of this chapter needed a lot more buildup and dramatic weight to really get going.**

 **I could've had Yukari fight back, use Io against the Magician Shadow, but in the end, I realized I would've rather had her end up mostly the same way her game counterpart did-unable to pull the trigger until it was too late. I felt it was appropriate for Yukari and her character development to gradually become more accustomed to the Evoker as time passes, and even now, when everyone's literally gushing out blood right in front of her, she's only able to pull the trigger right at the last moment.**

 **I wrote this in the original A03 rendition of the story, in Chapter 2, but I think it bears repeating: he reason I thought Yukari's POV was appropriate, other than the fact that barely any fics try it out for a P3 novelization, was because I genuinely feel her development as a character is both the most realistic and the most important one in the story, aside from the MC's (aka yours).**

 **Both she and the MC have parental issues, both have to confront said issues over the course of the story (to varying degrees of trauma and enlightenment), and it's largely through the MC's interactions with her that he's introduced into the world around him. She's the first to ever meet him during the Dark Hour, the one to drag him to Gekkoukan on his first day, the one to introduce him to SEES itself (and by extension all the other main characters in the story), and most important of all, it's through her and her backstory that sets the tone for how the specter of death hangs over pretty much everybody in the story.**

 **I'd dare say, even if you don't romance her, she's the second most important character in the story. And while many tend to be put off by her more annoying tendencies, I grew to appreciate her for them all the more. Personally, she came off as the most "normal" member in a party full of already-realistic characters; like she could actually be someone I'd meet and befriend in real life. Which I'm sure says a ton about my experiences with other people :P**


	5. Hospital

Been a week since what happened at the rooftop.

"You're going again?"

Yuko's voice isn't necessarily that loud, but Yukari's still anxious someone else can hear them.

Yukari closes her locker, "Yeah. Kinda owe it to him."

Yuko smiles, "What'd he even _do_? You wouldn't skip practice just for _some guy_ , right?"

Eyes narrow, "Let's just say he did a big favor for me, and it's 'cause of that, he's in the hospital."

The smile disappears. "Sorry to hear that."

Yukari sighs, "It's alright, you didn't know."

"You're not gonna tell me what he did? You _do_ realize all the rumors they're coming up with, right?"

Another sigh, " _More_ rumors...?"

"I know you don't like the attention, but come on. You know your reputation. Going to school with the guy on the first day showed _something_ was up, but now you've been visiting him the past few days. People are gonna talk."

"There's absolutely nothing between us."

"Could've fooled me," Yuko smirks. "They say you stared at him a lot while he was still in class."

" _Yuko_."

"Not my fault you're not self-aware."

Yukari presses her face into her hands, "I swear there's nothing there."

Yuko stays quiet for a few moments. "Sorry, wanted to lighten up the mood."

"Look," Yukari clears her throat, "I don't _like_ him. I don't even know him, not all that well. But, well...it wouldn't be right for me to just _not_ check up on him."

Yuko's eyes turn wary. "You sure you don't wanna tell me?"

Yukari sighs one last time, but smiles with it, "Sorry. But, no. I can't say."

Left side of Yuko's mouth juts out into a half-smirk. "Then what should I tell the Kendo club? Got your fair share of admirers there, too."

Oh my God, "Y'know what? Let the rumors spread. I don't care."

"You _suuuure_?"

Yukari shakes her head, grinning a little, "Absolutely."

"They're saying you two were walking home from school when he dashed in front of your path to save you from being run over by an eighteen-wheeler."

Even Yukari sniggers a bit at how cheesy that sounds. "If only."

Yuko's smile then is a small but earnest one. "Be safe. I hope he wakes up soon."

Yukari just nods, _He'd better_ , as she leaves the room, bag slung over her shoulder.

* * *

That first day after his admittance into the hospital, she read the rest of his files. She'd skimmed it before, but after he'd literally risked his life for hers, she decided that if she was going to deal with this guy for the rest of her tenure in S.E.E.S., she was going to know how he _worked_.

Reading it is a trial in and of itself, but she puts herself through it even with all the details she can't bear to read.

Said to be a socially open, warm child, loved by his parents and other children. At first.

After the car accident in 1999, he moved to Tokyo to live with one Sakura Shiomi, and her daughter Kotone. He's listed in the documents a problem child at this point, and he was known to have contacts with delinquents or gangs; actually had a few altercations with law enforcement concerning physical assault.

He frequently got into fights with older children, and won those fights, most of the time. Once shoved a cigarette into a kid's eye, blinding him for life. Another time, he used a steel pipe to kneecap someone else. Gruesome, gruesome details that Yukari gets a little queasy even thinking about. In 2006, he served some time in juvie, surprise surprise, and made it out early on the grounds of "good behavior."

Sakura Shiomi died in December of 2006. Apathy Syndrome.

Because why not. He could deal with more dead parents.

After that year, he never got in trouble with the law again.

His class attendance was virtually non-existent from 2000 to 2006, but whenever he _did_ show up, he always excelled. A-plusses all across the board. Though he was still reported to have had practically zero friends, even after his release from juvie, his grades skyrocketed. Even when his godmother died, he continued to work himself to the bone like nothing happened.

Dear God. No wonder he's the way he is.

Hell, Yukari doesn't even _like_ talking to _her_ mother, but reading his files almost makes her wanna call her up right this minute. Almost.

How the hell Kirijo got such a detailed description of his past, she doesn't know and she doesn't want to know.

Judging from how everyone in school's so eager to make stupid little rumors about him and her, it's safe to assume that nothing in the document's gotten out to the rest of the world yet. Which is _good_. Very, very good. God only knows how people in Gekkoukan would react if they got ahold of it.

To hell with the rumors about her and the _transfer boy_. Yuko's told her about the gossips people in Gekkoukan have already made about her and Arisato (going to school together on the first day of classes probably helped that along), and she knows she's exacerbating things by visiting him so often, but she owes it to him.

She goes into the hospital, signs her name, and makes her way past doctors, past people in wheeled beds, past different rooms. It's almost second nature now, the path to his room, and she hopes to any God that's listening that he'll find it in himself to wake up soon.

Whenever she enters his room, it's a bit of an unceremonious affair.

He's sleeping soundly now, covered in sheets, the light of the open window reflecting off the white of the blanket.

He looks so peaceful.

He'd better wake up. He's here because of her, and if he dies, then what a terrible life he'll have lived. And what a terrible end he'll meet. And it'll be all her fault.

She and the others have kept so much from him. It's just not fair for him to remain in the dark.

So she'll sit in her chair by the window and stay as long as she needs to. And when he wakes up, she'll tell him everything.

* * *

She's stirred from her sleep by a murmuring noise. Pulling herself up from the windowsill with a jolted motion, she takes a few moments to breathe deep and check the time on the wall.

5:30 PM. Almost closing hours.

She darts her eyes to him, sees his mouth move, and soon enough he opens his one good eye and breathes.

He stares at the white ceiling and yawns and keeps his eye open for a good ten seconds before Yukari can get the sheer _joy_ out of her system and she cries, "Y-you're awake!"

He blinks, and turns to her. Nonplussed. She almost swears he'll react the same way to a bear charging at him.

"U-um," Yukari stammers because she's trying to word these next few moments in her head the best she can, "h-how do you feel?"

He just continues blinking, trying to get rid of the blur in his vision, and after a few grunts he responds with a gravelly "Where am I...?"

"U-uh, you're in...Tatsumi Memorial Hospital. It's a short walk from the station. We brought you here after...you know..."

Obvious, obvious, who else could've brought him here, you sound so awkward and scared.

He clears his throat, and though he struggles to see, he knows fully well who's speaking to him right now. "Why are you here?"

He isn't annoyed with her presence. At least, he doesn't sound like it.

"You saved my life. I couldn't just leave you alone."

"...Okay."

That's the closest she'll ever get to a _Thank You_ , it seems...

"The doctor couldn't find anything wrong with you. He said you were just exhausted...but, you kept sleeping and sleeping...," Yukari's feeling something bubble up in her throat, "You know how worried I was?"

The anger always hits her when it isn't appropriate. Though he doesn't react at all, she pulls back because she can't hit him with all these emotions so soon.

"Um... I'm sorry I couldn't do anything...even though I was supposed to protect you, I...I panicked and wasn't much help... It was my first time fighting them, too. I'm sorry. You wouldn't have to go through all this if I wasn't such a coward."

And she was. She choked on herself right up until the end. And she'll never forgive herself for that.

But he manages to pull himself up from his sheets, and says, "It's not your fault."

"H-huh?"

"It's not your fault," he repeats, looking at her right in the eye. "I was scared, too."

Could've fooled her. Could've fooled anybody, really. "But, your power...it was _amazing_."

And she means that, she really does. It was terrifying and monstrous and even now she gets shudders thinking about it, but to do the things he did with just one Persona is something that she had never seen before and likely will never see again.

He ignores the compliment, though, and just gets straight to asking, "What did I even do...?"

"You don't remember?"

"It's all fuzzy. Sorry."

"I-it's okay, you...," she steels herself for this, "the power you used...we call it _Persona_. And those creatures you defeated..."

" _Shadows_...," he presses his palm to his head, like he's in pain, "yeah, yeah I remember. Okay."

"Y-you're hurt...?"

"It's just a headache, it'll pass," he then sucks in a deep breath, and faces her again. "So...that's what you guys're fighting."

"Yeah...although I've never seen one that big before."

"You're okay, though, right? Last I saw you, you were..."

"I'm fine," she grips her ribs.

"How? That thing nearly punched you off the roof..."

"You never even got to see my Persona," she chuckles half-heartedly. "She can heal. Pretty well, in fact. My side still hurts a little, though..."

"The senpai are okay, too?"

"Yeah. Mitsuru-senpai's Persona can heal, too. Though...Sanada-senpai's in the hospital, too. Apparently, some wounds you've just got to heal in the hospital. Still not very clear on how that works."

"Everyone's alive, then," he says, as something like relief rises in his tone. "That's good."

And he looks happy. He's smiling. Just a little, but he's smiling.

She has to tell him now. "I...I read your files."

The smile disappears, but he doesn't seem upset. "Well, Kirijo did say you guys pulled up my records..."

"I, uh...," stop struggling. Stop. Just say it. Please. You need to say it. "I wanted to tell you that...I'm sorta like you." He purses his lips, "What do you mean?"

"It doesn't seem fair that we all knew so much about your past, so I wanted you to know about mine. If...that's okay with you?"

He blinks, looks away for a moment, then turns back and nods.

"My dad died in an accident when I was little...and my mom and I aren't exactly on good terms. Years ago, there was a big explosion in the area. Supposedly, my dad died in the blast, but nobody really knows what happened. He was working in a lab run by the Kirijo Group."

His eye widens, like something clicked together in his head, "That's why you're going to Gekkoukan."

To which she nods. "Figured it out already, huh? Your files did say you were a grade-A student. I'm hoping that if I stick around long enough, I'll find out something."

"Back at the roof of the school, you said you had something you needed to do. You're willing to go through all this just to find out what happened?"

"I planned to try finding things out before I even knew the Dark Hour existed. And then I learned that it started on the same day my dad died...," and she searches for his reaction when she says this date: "December 1, 1999."

Their parents died on the same day the Dark Hour bore itself into the world. And judging from the look he gives her, he's completely aware of this fact, too. He's more shocked than he's ever been. She doesn't know if she should feel satisfied at that.

"I'm sorry for your loss," he says then, turning his gaze away. "I'm sorry for being so...look, I know that I've been, I haven't been-"

"It's fine. I mean...I know what you've been through, so I can understand," she sucks in a deep breath.

"You really didn't have to tell me any of this," he then says, his voice so clear you'd think he hadn't just slept for a week. "I'm very grateful you did."

She smiles. "I've wanted to tell someone that for a long time. I'm happy I told you."

He smiles back at her, and it's genuinely a very nice smile he gives, but then it fades to stone cold stoicism as he turns away again, "The Dark Hour's got a connection to what happened to our parents."

And she tries her best to adjust to the sudden subject change, "Yeah. It does. As far as we can tell."

"Alright. Let me join you guys, then."

"Wh-what?"

"You're not the only one with a stake in this. I've got stuff I need to figure out, too," he pulls the sheets off of him as he hangs his legs off the side of the bed/

"Hold _on_ a minute," she grabs his shoulders, "listen. Please. You've just woken up from a week-long nap, after fighting a giant monster that nearly _killed us_ on the roof of our dorm. I understand what you want, but...you know, you gotta _think_ about this for a little, okay? This isn't exactly something you just _decide_ on."

He blinks at her, and almost seems like he wants to argue back, but sighs instead. "I see my parents in my dreams," he tells her. "I've seen them for years. The way they were, inside the car. I'll never forget it."

The way he said that. She can't argue at all, and she knows it. "You're sure you want this?"

He blinks again. One more time. His expression now is completely blank. He pulls away the fringe from his head and opens his other eye.

There's nothing inside.

Nothing at all.

"After the accident, the last thing my right eye saw before everything turned black was a monster. I woke up in a bed just like this, covered in gauze and wires. More kids like me are gonna lose their parents, because more monsters like the one that took mine'll just be roaming the streets. I have the power to help stop them. You saw."

She just feels like an even bigger fool than ever before. "Alright then. I'll speak to the senpai and Ikutsuki."

"Alright," he nods. "I'm sorry if I was..."

She sighs and chuckles a bit, "Stop apologizing. I get it, I really do. I just...I remember you, on the roof..."

"On the roof...?"

"When the going got bad, you told me to leave you behind and get the gun. And while it made sense at the time, you can't expect me to just... _leave you there_ , if ever something like that happens again. I won't do that."

Yukari's of course, leaving out the fact that she's also quite scared of the idea of him leaving her behind, if things ever would get that bad. But she's not gonna let him know that.

"Yeah," is all he can say to that. "Okay. I won't make you do that, then."

"Good," she huffs, leaning in her seat with crossed arms.

Things are a bit silent for a moment. They don't look at each other, their eyes averted elsewhere.

But Yukari's happy she's gotten through to him as much as he has. She's happy she's come to speak to him, to unload all these things from her chest and let him know that he's got someone he can count on.

She's happy that she and he have come this far.

"...you'd better get going," he clears his throat, "it's six."

She turns to the clock. "You're right. Sorry this was cut short," then she rises from her seat, "I'll let the others know you woke up. Take it easy, okay? Be a good patient, and don't hesitate to call the nurse. I'm sure she'll take good care of you."

And as she gets up from her seat, as she heads to the door, she hears him say one last thing to her:

"Thank you, for protecting me."

That statement perplexes Yukari beyond belief, and the way he said it makes her feel ways she doesn't think she likes to feel, so she returns it with, "You're the one who protected me, in the end," before heading out the room.

* * *

 **A/N: THESIS IS DOOOOOONE**

 **And boy do i have a lot of fics to finish up on huhu**


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